1st International Workshop on Technical Debt for Variability-intensive Systems
TD4ViS 2022
held in conjunction with SPLC2022 - 26th ACM International Systems and Software Product Line Conference, Graz, Austria, September, 2022

Introduction and goals
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Taking sub-optimal decisions in the development of systems, even if beneficial in the short term, might challenge future maintenance activities and evolution, a phenomenon termed technical debt. Considering the numerous design and implementation decisions that variability management comprises, it represents a relevant source of technical debt. Thus, variability-intensive systems might accumulate specific types of technical debt affecting diverse software assets such as requirements, architecture, source code, documentation, tests, etc. However, variability management has not been properly analysed from a technical debt perspective. Therefore, it is important to explore what is specific to variability debt compared to other types of technical debt, as well as, what are the specifics of managing TD in variability intensive systems. A concise definition and characterization including a catalog of examples is desirable. In addition, many adaptations and approaches can be proposed for the typical technical debt management activities (identification, measurement, prioritization, repayment, monitoring, prevention, representation/documentation, and communication), and a roadmap is to be defined.

Goals
- To set the foundations of variability debt management
- To cross-fertilize the fields of technical debt and variability management

Workshop Topics
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The following topics are relevant for TD4ViS, but not an exhaustive list:
- Identification of technical debt related to variability
- Variability smells
- Variability management paradigms from a technical debt perspective (e.g., Clone & Own vs SPLs, annotative vs compositional vs other kind of implementation mechanisms)
- Variability debt in requirements engineering
- Variability debt in Software Product Line Architectures
- Variability debt in source code, tests, and other project assets
- Measurement of variability debt and cost models
- Prioritization of variability debt
- Re-payment of variability debt and transformation mechanisms for reducing variability debt
- Monitoring and dashboards for variability debt management
- Prevention of variability debt
- Modeling, documenting and communicating variability debt to different stakeholders
- Relation of variability debt with non-functional properties such as maintainability and evolvability, but also other ones such as performance, safety or security
- Variability debt in dynamic variability-intensive systems such as self-adaptive systems and dynamic SPLs
- Tools for variability debt management activities
- Case studies and industrial experiences of variability debt

Important dates
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Paper submissions: June 14, 2022
Paper notifications: July 1, 2022
Final version of papers: July 7, 2022
TD4ViS 2022 Workshop: September 2022. To be defined soon. Probably 12 or 13.
SPLC 2022 Conference: 12-16, September 2022

Submission details
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Submission types: Authors interested in participating in the workshop are requested to submit
- Position paper (from 2 to 4 pages)
- Lightning talk application (just an abstract, and not included in the proceedings)
Format for position papers: Submissions should use the ACM SIGS proceedings format.
Submission: All position papers submitted to the workshop must be unpublished original work and must not have been submitted anywhere else for publication. Each position paper and lightning talk application will be reviewed by three PC members. Both types should be submitted via EasyChair.

Organizers
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- Jabier Martinez, Tecnalia, Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Spain
- Wesley K. G. Assunção, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria and
Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Daniele Wolfart, Biopark Education, Brazil
- Klaus Schmid, University of Hildesheim, Germany
- Apostolos Ampatzoglou, University of Macedonia, Greece

Technical Program Committee
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- Alexander Chatzigeorgiou, University of Macedonia, Greece
- Antonio Martini, University of Oslo, Norway
- Clemente Izurieta, Montana State University, US
- Daniel Feitosa, University of Groningen, Netherlands
- Elvira-Maria Arvanitou, University of Macedonia, Greece
- Ivan Machado, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil
- Rafael Capilla, Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain
- Rick Rabiser, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria
- Roberto Verdecchia, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Sandro Schulze, Universität Potsdam, Germany
- Tommi Mikkonen, University of Helsinki & University of Jyväskylä, Finland
- Valentina Lenarduzzi, University of Oulu, Finland
- Wolfram Fenske, Pure-Systems, Germany

Confirmed Keynotes
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- Ipek Ozkaya, Carnegie Mellon University, Software Engineering Institute (SEI), US
- Jan Bosch, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden