Return on investment of software product line traceability in the short, mid and long term

Several works discuss tracing in Software Product Lines from a technical and architectural points of view, by proposing methods to implement traceability in the system. However, before discussing this field of traceability, we first need to prove the profitability of integrating such approach in the Product Line. Therefore, we bring in this paper a quantitative analysis on how traceability can impact the Return on Investment of a Software Product Line, and in which conditions, in terms of number of products and SPL phase, can tracing be profitable. We compare the results of a generic Software Product Line estimation model, COPLIMO, and our model METra-SPL. Our analysis shows that introducing traceability costs when constructing the Product Line, but can be profit making in the long term, especially in maintenance phase, starting from 2 products to generate. Copyright © 2015 SCITEPRESS - Science and Technology Publications.