Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel • Hacker News Board

Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#61

Post by nulld3v » Thu, Jan 18, 2024, 4:58 PM UTC

shzhdbi09gv8ioi wrote: post #28

themerone wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drunk driving is a stupid thing people do. Murder is an act of evil.

Only if you believe in evil. I'm not christian so I don't see the world like that. He killed his s/o, like what 15 years ago now? People change and deserves a second chance.

What do you mean by "I don't believe in evil"?

I think many people can agree that inherently "evil" people are very very rare. Usually people who commit an "evil" act have a reason or justification. It's portrayed in literally every movie with an antihero and spawned the "villain origin story" meme.

But even if they have a reason/justification, that does not make the antihero or villain any less evil.

Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#62

Post by robbbbbbbbbbbb » Thu, Jan 18, 2024, 4:58 PM UTC

iknowstuff wrote: post #33

iaw wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple paragraphs below on the wiki: > As of 2020, Reiser was housed at the Correctional Training Facility near Soledad, California, with a tentative parole eligibility date of August 2027 after parole was denied in 2022.

How does he end up imprisoned 4 years longer than his sentencing indicated?

"15 Years _to life_"

Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#63

Post by robertlagrant » Thu, Jan 18, 2024, 4:58 PM UTC

sph wrote: post #19

I think about Hans Reiser pretty often, incidentally, because there is a quote from him I read as a teenager that stuck with me. "The utility of an operating system is proportional to the number of connections possible between its components, than it is to the number of those components." — Hans Reiser (from http://web.archive.org/web/20040126210110/http://unununium.o... ) It's hard to reconcile good things a person…

> That sentence is a guiding principle of software design that I cannot often quote, without entering into a huge discussion on the pain Reiser has caused

That's a shame. He did something awful, but that's nothing at all to do with the idea in the quotation. Ideas shouldn't be cursed because the wrong person said them; they should stand or fall on their own merits.

Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#64

Post by ahazred8ta » Thu, Jan 18, 2024, 5:00 PM UTC

glonq wrote: post #27

lxe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently he's been in prison for murdering his wife since 2008

Oh I remember when that whole thing went down. It caused quite the buzz on Slashdot. ...but now I'm struggling to remember how many times I've logged into Slashdot in the past 10 years...

The webcomic "Everybody Loves Eric Raymond" got a bit of mileage out of it. https://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/cat/hans-reiser

Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#65

Post by hollerith » Thu, Jan 18, 2024, 5:00 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #44

hollerith wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the prosecutor's office offered him a sentence of 3 years if he'd lead investigators to where he buried the body, the burden is on you IMHO to support your assertion because obviously if the informed professionals in the prosecutor's office thought it was a pre-planned murder they wouldn't've been that lenient. (In the US, pre-planned murders are routinely punished by life in prison without parole; California m…

What sentence of 3 years are you talking about? The judge offered (and prosecutors agreed to) a plea guilty of second-degree murder (down from the first degree murder he was convicted of) if he revealed the location of the body and gave closure to her Nina’s children and family. He got 15 to life, the maximum for second-degree murder, and his first request for parole was rejected so he’s doing at least 20 for now.

What you describe happened after the trial. The offer of 3 years happened before the trial:

>An Alameda County Superior Court judge confirmed today Hans Reiser was presented a deal last year in which the convicted murderer would have only served three years in prison. During what was supposed to have been Reiser’s sentencing hearing – which has been delayed due to this week’s events – Judge Larry Goodman, in an effort to clear up what he called inaccuracies in the media, said that Reiser was given the opportunity last September to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter. While voluntary manslaughter can carry different prison terms, Goodman said he agreed to give Reiser three years – the lowest possible term – to spare Nina Reiser’s family the turmoil of going through a trial and having the couple’s oldest son testify. Goodman pointed out in court if Reiser had accepted the deal, he would have been released in May 2008. However, Goodman said Reiser chose to “roll the dice,” and a jury convicted Reiser April 28 of first-degree murder in the killing of his wife.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2008/07/09/reiser-rejected-volun...

Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#66

Post by auntienomen » Thu, Jan 18, 2024, 5:01 PM UTC

themerone wrote: post #20

Aloha wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking in general terms, not to the specifics of Hans Reiser's crimes - I dont see why it wouldn't allow for redemption, people do stupid things and get blinded easily.

Drunk driving is a stupid thing people do. Murder is an act of evil.

Drunk driving is worse than stupid. It's up there with shooting a gun into someone's house.

Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#67

Post by mpol » Thu, Jan 18, 2024, 5:01 PM UTC

A few things that stuck out to me.

SuSE supposedly failed. I don't know who told him that. He might have expected it to be a RedHat or Ubuntu by now, which it isn't. But failed is very black and white. I would argue, if they still exist as they do now, they are quite successful.

He talks about Reiser V4. I think there is a Reiser V5 now? Or am I wrong? I cannot find that on Wikipedia. Anyway, the chances of it ending up in the Linux kernel seem close to zero.

He sounds very humble. Also he talks about being more social and having got education and therapy in prison. Still it reads as if they are all working together in prison, in certain ways. The world out there might be more complex. I don't know if he is being naive in this regard.

Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#68

Post by robertlagrant » Thu, Jan 18, 2024, 5:01 PM UTC

bachmeier wrote: post #18

mariusor wrote: post #2

I don't know if ending another human's life leaves any possibility of redemption for a person, but reading this I still empathize with the sense of loss and powerlessness that emanate from this letter.

"Ending another human's life" covers a wide range of cases. My recollection of this event, which is now long in the past, is that he was cold, calculating, did not value human life, and was quite comfortable with his kids moving on without their mother. He didn't just do something to her. He permanently damaged his kids, her family, and all of her friends. He made his decision knowing all of this. Redemption? Possibl…

> because he's not like the rest of us

I don't think we can know this, and there's no point speculating. I would say that the letter doesn't read as someone who's imperfectly simulating regret.

Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#69

Post by atemerev » Thu, Jan 18, 2024, 5:01 PM UTC

vimax wrote: post #57

Joker_vD wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because not being able to freely communicate with the larger society is part of the punishment? I dunno, always seemed like an obvious thing.

Why should prisons be about punishment rather than rehabilitation?

“Rehabilitation” means that a person is suffering from some condition, and they are not personally at fault for their crimes. While there is some partial truth in this point of view, taking it at 100% face value is unfair, to say the least. People can be actually guilty of something.

Re: Hans Reiser on ReiserFS deprecation in the Linux kernel

#70

Post by not2b » Thu, Jan 18, 2024, 5:01 PM UTC

I worked with Hans Reiser in the late 90s. He was a contractor with the company that I was working for, and he was doing that (working on logic synthesis for FPGAs) by day and trying to start his company at night. He was very passionate about his technical ideas, though in those days he had difficulty explaining them, so I went back and forth about whether he was a genius or a crank (I decided that he was some combination of the two). I have a music CD somewhere around that he gave me, new age-y music his mother composed (not sure whether I still have it or not). I didn't want to believe that he was a murderer, but it soon became clear that he was lying.