Feature models capture what is the same or different about your products as seen from the customer or marketing perspective. For example, if your product has features that the customer can choose as options then these would be detailed in your feature model.

Family models capture what is the same or different about your products as seen from engineering perspective. For example, if two different components are used to implement two alternative product features (e.g. network protocols), then these alternatives would be captured in your family model.

Once these models have been set up, any number of individual product variants may be derived from them. This is done by specifying the features you'd like for the product variant.

pure::variants assists in this process by automatically resolving any conflicting choices that are made or highlighting them if it cannot resolve them automatically.

Once you've specified the feature for a product variant, pure::variants is used to automatically assemble software and/or other assets (e.g. bills of materials, documentation, test assets) for the variant.

This can involve selecting software components, files, or file fragments from a configuration management or file system, but can can also involve some amount of automatic code generation, depending on the nature of your Product Line.

See a summary of pure::variants' key capabilities.