In fact, the products in a software product line can best be leveraged when they share a common architecture that is used to structure components from which the products are built. This common software architecture 2 capitalizes on commonalities in the implementation of the line of products and provides the structural robustness that makes the derivation of software products from software assets economically viable. The architecture and components are central to the set of core assets used to construct and evolve the products in the product line. When we refer to a product line, we always mean a software product line built as a product family. Some organizations refer to the core asset base that is reused on systems in a product line as a platform.
Some organizations have other terms for product line.
Terminology is not nearly as important to us as the underlying concepts involved, namely, the use of a common asset base in the production of a set of related products. By product line practice, we mean the systematic use of software assets to assemble, instantiate, generate, or modify the multiple products that constitute a product line. Product line practice involves strategic, large-grained reuse as a business enabler. Some organizations have already experienced considerable savings in using a product line approach for software system production. Other organizations are attracted to the idea but are in varying stages of integrating product line practices.