Observers in the present usually have an advantage when it comes to interpreting events of the past. In the case of software reuse, how- ever, it is unclear why an idea that has gained such universal accep- tance was the source of swirling controversy when it began to be taken seriously by the software engineering community in the mid-1980's. From a purely conceptual point of view, the reuse of software de- signs and components promises nearly risk-free benefits to the devel- oper. Virtually every model of software cost and development effort predicts first-order dependencies on either...