A Systematic Review of Software Product Lines Applied to Mobile Middleware

Mobile computing imposes several restrictions to software development due to diversities in network connectivity, platform capability and resource availability. Middleware has been used to abstract such issues from application developers, resolving common challenges of distributed systems. However, middleware is considered a heavy-weight technology to mobile computing, as it is a general purpose solution. By enabling the customization of the set of features provided by a middleware, the adoption of Software Product Lines techniques seems to be a promising systematic approach. Nevertheless, this is an incipient subject that has been explored for few research groups. In this sense, this paper goal is to present a systematic review of Product Line techniques applied to middleware for mobile computing.