Towards a Biology-Based Approach to Support Software Process Line Evolution

Considering the fact that the process by which software is developed influences the final product quality, companies are concerned with their process definitions. However, defining a software process is a complex activity, as well as a risky one. In this scenario, different software process reuse techniques have been proposed in the literature, such as Software Process Line (SPrL). SPrL provides a systematic way to support software process reuse, aiming to increase the reuse potential, risk reduction, among other benefits. However, SPrL is not being widely used in industry yet, mainly due to the lack of support, e.g., SPrL evolution support. SPrL evolution research topic investigates the modifications (e.g., maintenance, improvement, tailoring) performed during the SPrL lifecycle and helps to understand and manage them. Although it has not been appropriately explored by previous studies, it is important to support SPrL useful life extension through enabling practices and technologies. Aware that engineers often try to learn from their natural counterparts to solve problems following approaches in nature, this paper analyzes four theories of biological evolution aiming at interpreting its concepts and terms within the SPrL evolution context. Different SPrL evolution's open research points were observed. It is expected that this work supports future investigations to propose a biology-based approach to support SPrL evolution.