FAMOOS
	Framework-based
	Approach for
	Mastering
	Object-
	Oriented
	Software Evolution

Software Composition Group - Institut für Informatik - University of Berne



The Project in a Nutshell
-------------------------

FAMOOS is an ESPRIT project that will last 3 years starting from
September 1st, 1996. ESPRIT projects are concerned with research and
development activities in the area of information technology, i.e., all
software that underpins the way companies do business and supports the
design and manufacture of products. The FAMOOS project intends to
improve existing software by making it more flexible; i.e. adaptable to
the changing requirements imposed by the way people want to use
information technology. In computer science, the state of the art
dictates object-oriented programming as a key factor to achieve
flexibility.

An ESPRIT project must bring together companies and research
institutions from different members of the European Union, but
encourages the participation of non-member countries as well. Since
Switzerland invests in joint international research projects, the
University of Berne was able to participate in the ESPRIT programme.

The partners in the FAMOOS project are:

- Nokia Corporation (Finland) is an international group strongly
positioned in all key growth areas of the telecommunication business.
Nokia relies heavily on state of the art information technology for all
of its activities.

- Daimler-Benz (Germany) is the largest industrial concern in Europe.
The group is active in the areas of traffic & transport systems and
services - areas that benefit a lot from information technology
projects.

- SEMA Group s.a.e. (Spain) is one of the largest software houses in
Spain. SEMA provides the FAMOOS project with the Concerto2/Audit tool.


- TakeFive Software (Austria) is a company dedicated to providing
solutions for managing complex software development by providing tools
and technologies. TakeFive sells the SNiFF+ tool, used in the FAMOOS
project.

- FZI (Germany) is a research centre that transfers technology from
computer science to the software industry and, as such, has lots of
experience with re-engineering.

- Software Composition Group (Switzerland) is a research group part of
the Institut fr Informatik at the University of Berne, specialised in
object-oriented software engineering.


Oversimplified, the set-up of the FAMOOS project is such that the
technology users (i.e., Nokia and Daimler-Benz) provide real-world
cases to be studied by the academic partners (i.e., University of Berne
and FZI) using the tools supplied by the technology providers (i.e.,
SEMA and TakeFive).


The Role of the Software Composition Group
------------------------------------------

Improvement of software systems requires controlled modifications.
Therefore the FAMOOS project is essentially about re-engineering
existing software systems, where we regard re-engineering as an
evolutionary process with five phases:
 1.Model Capture: documenting and understanding the software system
 2.Problem Detection: identifying flexibility and quality problems
 3.Problem Resolution: selecting new software architectures to correct
   the problems
 4.Reorganisation: transforming the existing software architecture for a
   new release
 5.Change Propagation: ensuring that all client systems benefit from the
   new release

Although the Software Composition Group works on the complete
re-engineering cycle, our main contribution is expected within phases 3
and 4, i.e. the quest for improving the software architecture or --put
into different terms-- forward engineering. Indeed, the Software Compo-
sition Group acts as strong advocates for the idea of software
components: we believe that the best way to create flexible software
systems is by building them out of reusable components conforming to a
"plug-in architecture". Just like a malfunctioning TV-systems can be
repaired more effectively by replacing defective IC's, we want to adapt
an outdated software system by substituting new software components for
older ones. The Software Composition Group group has done quite a lot
of work on both the formal as well as practical aspects of
component-based software architectures, and the FAMOOS project gives us
an excellent opportunity to test our ideas on real-world cases.


More Information
----------------

To learn more about FAMOOS and the role of the Software Composition
Group in the project, you might want to look at our world-wide web site
or contact us via the following coordinates.

	http://iamwww.unibe.ch/~famoos/
	e-mail: famoos@iam.unibe.ch

	Institut für Informatik (IAM) - Universität Bern
	Software Composition Group
	Neubrückstrasse 10
	CH-3012 Berne, Switzerland
	Tel: +41 (31) 631.4618
	Fax: +41 (31) 631.3965