Call for challenge solutions

We are currently in Phase 2 of the challenge track, and the Call for Solutions is open. The following cases have been selected as representative and timely research challenges in the area of software and system product line engineering.
The new accepted challenges are:

Testing Configurable Software Systems: The Failure Observation Challenge.
Fischer Ferreira, Markos Viggiato, MaurÍcio Souza and Eduardo Figueiredo.

Variability Management meets Microservices: Six Challenges of Re-Engineering Microservice-Based Webshops.
Wesley K. G. Assunção, Jacob Krüger and Willian D. F. Mendonça.

A BDD for Linux? The Knowledge Compilation Challenge for Variability.
Thomas Thüm.

Please note that the call for solutions also includes the accepted challenges of previous years (i.e., SPLC 2018, SPLC 2019):

Applying Product Line Engineering Concepts to Deep Neural Networks
Javad Ghofrani, Ehsan Kozegar, Anna Lena Fehlhaber, and Mohammad Divband Soorati

Product Sampling for Product Lines: The Scalability Challenge
Tobias Pett, Thomas Thüm, Tobias Runge, Sebastian Krieter, Malte Lochau, and Ina Schaefer

Apo-Games – A Case Study for Reverse Engineering Variability from Cloned Java Variants
Jacob Krüger, Wolfram Fenske, Thomas Thüm, Dirk Aporius, Gunter Saake, and Thomas Leich

Feature Location Benchmark with ArgoUML SPL
Jabier Martinez, Nicolas Ordoñez, Xhevahire Tërnava, Tewfik Ziadi, Jairo Aponte, Eduardo Figueiredo, and Marco Tulio Valente

Interoperability of Software Product Line Variants
Ferruccio Damiani, Reiner Hähnle, Eduard Kamburjan, and Michael Lienhardt

Localizing Configurations in Highly-Configurable Systems
Paul Gazzillo, Ugur Koc, Thanhvu Nguyen, and Shiyi Wei

Check the complete information of previous challenges at: https://variability-challenges.github.io/

Each of these cases presents a set of concrete tasks (some of which may be optional) which are to be solved by the participants. The case descriptions, which typically include pointers to additional resources, are available through the respective links above.

The SPLC 2020 Challenge Track now seeks your solutions to all of these interesting problems of various natures. To participate, select a case you are interested in and submit a paper that tackles the tasks and challenges described in that challenge case. You are welcome to submit multiple papers, where each paper is related to one case. Papers should be accompanied by solution artifacts as necessary, depending on the case study and the concrete tasks which are to be solved. Thus, solution artifacts may range from hand-crafted sketches or models to fully automatically generated development artifacts or analysis results. Wherever possible, solution artifacts should be made available in a public repository or be hosted on a publicly available website to ensure the reproducibility of the results. The paper should include a description of your solution and include an evaluation according to the evaluation criteria stated by the respective case description. Note that early ideas, early results, and partial solutions are welcome. Also, note that submissions that apply existing tools and techniques to address a given challenge are also welcome.

Solutions will be evaluated by program committees, one separate committee per case, which are comprised of reviewers who have the expertise required to evaluate submitted solutions. Typically, one or two case authors are part of a case’s PC. Accepted solutions will be presented and discussed at the conference and their corresponding papers will be published in the official conference proceedings. Please note that case authors cannot submit a solution to their own case study in the same year that they present the case. For example, case authors of this edition of SPLC willing to provide solutions to their challenge can only submit to their own cases in the subsequent SPLC editions, but case authors of the previous SPLC edition can submit solutions to their own challenges.

SUBMISSION INFORMATION

If you have a suitable case study, we encourage you to write a short description with all the necessary details and submit this description through EasyChair (Challenge Track). Case study proposals have a minimum length of 2 pages and a maximum length of 6 pages, including all references and figures. Submissions must follow the ACM Master Article Template: https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template.

Latex users are indicated to use the “sigconf” option, so they are recommended to use the template that can be found in “sample-sigconf.tex”. In this way, the following latex code can be placed at the start of the latex document:

\documentclass[sigconf]{acmart}

\acmConference[SPLC'20]{24th ACM International Systems and Software Product Line Conference}{19--23 October, 2020}{Montreal, Canada}

IMPORTANT DATES (AOE TIME)

The following describes the important dates for the whole timeline of the challenge track.

Note regarding COVID-19 contingence: your contributions will be thoroughly evaluated by our track committees, and all accepted contributions will be published by ACM. Some delays may occur with the editing of the formal proceedings, but we will handle the situation accordingly. While SPLC 2020 is still more than 6 months away, the organization team is ready to handle the different scenarios that might apply in mid-October (e.g. presence and/or virtual conference). As the situation evolves, you will be informed in due course on any decisions taken through our different communication channels.

• Case submission deadline: 7 February 2020 21 February 2020  
• Case notification:  14 February 2020 28 February 2020
• Camera ready case descriptions deadline: 21 February 2020 6 March 2020
• Call for solutions released: 28 February 2020 13 March 2020
• Solution submission deadline: 22 June 2020 July 6
• Solution notification: 13 July 2020 July 24
• Camera ready solution papers due: 10 Sept 2020

CHAIRS