Elias Kuiter

Hi There! I am a research associate and PhD student at the University of Magdeburg under the supervision of Gunter Saake. In my research, I closely cooperate with Thomas Thüm and his team at TU Braunschweig.

Software Variability Software is eating the world. It has become an integral part of our daily lives, powering our coolers and medical appliances, among countless others. Day to day, software engineers must face growing complexity, yet deliver high-quality software. In my research, I study software variability, which allows users to customize software according to their individual needs and expectations. I am particularly interested in software quality and evolution, and how these interact with variability.

Feature Modeling At the heart of variability, we often find features that can be configured according to taste. Not all features play well with each other, which is why we model them and their interactions. Automated reasoning techniques like satisfiability solving are often remarkably effective for analyzing variability. Yet, such analyses remain challenging on evolving system software like the Linux kernel.

What Else? I co-created a course on software product lines, which I teach in Magdeburg. I also teach courses on databases and academic writing there, besides supervising student theses and projects on advanced topics in feature-model analysis. Finally, I work on various open-source tools related to my research, including FeatureIDE, FeatJAR, torte, and clausy.

In my free time, I enjoy singing and arranging a cappella music, indoor climbing, and reading (e.g., rational fiction).

Research Highlights

These are selected publications, which you can read by clicking on PDF. My full list of publications is available here.

TOSEM

How Configurable is the Linux Kernel? Analyzing Two Decades of Feature-Model History

Elias Kuiter, Chico Sundermann, Thomas Thüm, Tobias Heß, Sebastian Krieter, and Gunter Saake

Trans. on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), Apr 2025

To appear

DOI PDF Bib

@article{KST+:TOSEM25,
  author = {Kuiter, Elias and Sundermann, Chico and Th{\"{u}}m, Thomas and He{\ss}, Tobias and Krieter, Sebastian and Saake, Gunter},
  title = {{How Configurable is the Linux Kernel? Analyzing Two Decades of Feature-Model History}},
  journal = {Trans.\ on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM)},
  note = {To appear},
  doi = {10.1145/3729423},
  publisher = {ACM},
  address = {New York, NY, USA},
  month = apr,
  year = {2025},
  keywords = {TOSEM},
}

VaMoS

Teach Variability! A Modern University Course on Software Product Lines

Elias Kuiter, Thomas Thüm, and Timo Kehrer

In Proc. Int’l Working Conf. on Variability Modelling of Software-Intensive Systems (VaMoS), Rennes, France, Feb 2025

Best Research Paper DOI PDF Bib

@inproceedings{KTK:VaMoS25,
  author = {Kuiter, Elias and Th{\"{u}}m, Thomas and Kehrer, Timo},
  title = {{Teach Variability! A Modern University Course on Software Product Lines}},
  booktitle = {Proc.\ Int'l Working Conf.\ on Variability Modelling of Software-Intensive Systems (VaMoS)},
  location = {Rennes, France},
  doi = {10.1145/3715340.3715441},
  publisher = {ACM},
  address = {New York, NY, USA},
  month = feb,
  year = {2025},
  keywords = {VaMoS},
}

ASE

Tseitin or not Tseitin? The Impact of CNF Transformations on Feature-Model Analyses

Elias Kuiter, Sebastian Krieter, Chico Sundermann, Thomas Thüm, and Gunter Saake

In Proc. Int’l Conf. on Automated Software Engineering (ASE), Rochester, MI, USA, Oct 2022

DOI PDF Bib

@inproceedings{KKS+:ASE22,
  author = {Kuiter, Elias and Krieter, Sebastian and Sundermann, Chico and Th{\"{u}}m, Thomas and Saake, Gunter},
  title = {{Tseitin or not Tseitin? The Impact of CNF Transformations on Feature-Model Analyses}},
  booktitle = {Proc.\ Int'l Conf.\ on Automated Software Engineering (ASE)},
  location = {Rochester, MI, USA},
  doi = {10.1145/3551349.3556938},
  publisher = {ACM},
  address = {New York, NY, USA},
  month = oct,
  year = {2022},
  keywords = {ASE},
}

EMSE

variED: An Editor for Collaborative, Real-Time Feature Modeling

Elias Kuiter, Sebastian Krieter, Jacob Krüger, Gunter Saake, and Thomas Leich

Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE), Mar 2021

DOI PDF Bib

@article{KKK+:EMSE21,
  author = {Kuiter, Elias and Krieter, Sebastian and Kr{\"{u}}ger, Jacob and Saake, Gunter and Leich, Thomas},
  title = {{variED: An Editor for Collaborative, Real-Time Feature Modeling}},
  journal = {Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE)},
  volume = {26},
  number = {2},
  doi = {10.1007/s10664-020-09892-x},
  publisher = {Springer},
  month = mar,
  year = {2021},
  keywords = {EMSE},
}