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When I started in Linux full-time, back in the early 2000s, I was presented with different fs options - the installer did not give me any information on benefits, or on which ones were considered "stable". ext2 was available, but it also had a built-in version number, and I feared that once ext3 eventually rolled over, it might be incompatible. So I chose the fs that came with a name attached: ReiserFS. If someone was willing to attach their name to their code, I figured, that must be some quality code.
ReiserFS served me well, even though it always was a system lurking in the background. I was not a storage specialist. I was just a guy doing work on a Linux desktop, and ReiserFS "just worked". Occassionally, I put in a new disk, and watched the progression of other fs. Eventually, I switched over to ReiserFSv4.
Fast forward a few years, and the whole murder thing happens. Immediately the thing that made ReiserFS stand out for me becomes radioactive - the name is burnt. And I see distros slowly phasing out advertising the option of having a ReiserFS partition. Yes, it was still there when you searched for it, but it didn't feature prominently in the installers anymore. And it is obvious that the code becomes stale - arguably understandable, who would do OSS work on code that is branded the name of a murderer?
Twenty years later, I am still a Linux user. The last ReiserFS disk got shredded a year ago. Feels like the end of an era.
Lessons learned: Naming matters. If you attach your name to something and want that project to survive, maybe do not commit violent crimes.
ReiserFS does have its benefits in highly specific use-cases. I have a filesystem with an absurd number of tiny files in it. I host a statically rendered wikipedia mirror. Tens of millions of gzipped html-files with a filesize in the range 1-5 Kb. ReiserFS is the only filesystem I know that deals even the slightest bit gracefully with this thanks to tail-packing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anything to prevent them from changing the name of the filesystem?
Why erase history? It happened, and it's interesting.
Let history be. But rename the project to something like ChameleonFS. Hans Reiser's mentions will still be in the git history.
Admittedly, it's not a great signal if the candidate hadn't heard of it or used it depending on their career length because plenty avoided it and happily lived in other FS worlds or avoided certain hype, but it's a fairly good positive signal if someone actually starts talking about it knowledgably in some way regardless of it on positive or critical notes--just have to keep survivorship and confirmation biases actively in mind when weighing these things.
ReiserFS is a lesson in project naming. When I started in Linux full-time, back in the early 2000s, I was presented with different fs options - the installer did not give me any information on benefits, or on which ones were considered "stable". ext2 was available, but it also had a built-in version number, and I feared that once ext3 eventually rolled over, it might be incompatible. So I chose the fs that came with…
Ah, but that's all I can think about when I read about reiserfs. For anyone who is unaware, the author, Hans Reiser, killed his wife and hid her body. There was a long and public investigation and he was found guilty. He later produced her body as part of a plea deal.
All that said, if it's hurting kernel development and almost nobody is using it, perhaps a deprecation cycle is due. Maybe bcachefs is a good replacement? Or perhaps nobody cares about efficiently storing small files these days at all, and we just all go to XFS, ext4, and ZFS. I think dropping it during a short period is detrimental to users. Maybe a two or three version warning is due.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why erase history? It happened, and it's interesting.
Because companies may not want to be involved in a product called "PersonWhoIsConvictedWithMurder-FS". Let history be. But rename the project to something like ChameleonFS. Hans Reiser's mentions will still be in the git history.
Not that I think that's good rebranding, but it did amuse us.