Software reuse offers a solution to eliminate repeated work and improve efficiency and quality in the software development.In the recent ten years

object oriented technology has appeared and become a mainstream technology

thereby providing fundamental technology support for software reuse.Software reuse regains more attention in software engineering research and is considered a pratical and feasible approach to solving the software crisis.Software reuse is generally classified into two catalogues:product reuse and process reuse.Reuse based on software components is the important form of product reuse and is the major area of software reuse research.At the same time

software component technology plays an important role in distributed object research.Therefore

software component technology is regarded as a key factor of successful software reuse.The development and application of software reuse technology will facilitate the revolution of software development and reorganize software industry.As a result

the development of software components will become an independent and inseparable industry.The revolution offers a good chance for Chinese software development.This paper is a summarization on the development of software reuse technology.It presents fundamental concepts and key techniques of software reuse.After introducing several successful research and practice in software reuse

including Jade Bird Project

a Chinese national key project supported by the government

it proposes some ideas on how to reinforce research and application of related techniques and facilitate the development of software industry in China.