Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools support requirements engineering (RE) tasks like requirements elicitation, classification, and validation. However, they are often developed from scratch despite functional overlaps, and abandoned after publication. This lack of interoperability and maintenance incurs unnecessary development effort, impedes tool comparison and benchmarking, complicates documentation, and diminishes the long-term sustainability of NLP4RE tools. To address these issues, we postulate a vision to transition from monolithic NLP4RE tools to an ecosystem of reusable, interoperable modules. We outline a research roadmap towards a software reference architecture (SRA) to realize this vision, elaborated following a standard methodological framework for SRA development. As an initial step, we conducted a stakeholder-driven focus group session to elicit generic system requirements for NLP4RE tools. This activity resulted in 36 key system requirements, further motivating the need for a dedicated SRA. Overall, the proposed vision, roadmap, and initial contribution pave the way towards improved development, reuse, and long-term maintenance of NLP4RE tools.

翻译：自然语言处理（NLP）工具能够支持需求工程（RE）中的需求获取、分类与验证等任务。然而，尽管功能存在重叠，这些工具往往从头开发，并在发表后即被弃用。这种互操作性与维护性的缺失导致了不必要的开发投入，阻碍了工具的比较与基准测试，使文档编制复杂化，并削弱了NLP4RE工具的长期可持续性。为解决这些问题，我们提出了一个愿景：从单体式的NLP4RE工具转向一个由可复用、可互操作模块构成的生态系统。我们概述了为实现该愿景而制定软件参考架构（SRA）的研究路线图，并依据SRA开发的标准方法学框架进行了详细阐述。作为初步步骤，我们开展了一项由利益相关者驱动的焦点小组讨论，以获取对NLP4RE工具的通用系统需求。该活动产生了36项关键系统需求，进一步论证了制定专门SRA的必要性。总体而言，所提出的愿景、路线图及初步贡献为改进NLP4RE工具的研发、复用及长期维护铺平了道路。