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Hans Reiser Arrested On Suspicion of Murder

Many readers wrote about the arrest today of Hans Reiser, author of ReiserFS, by Oakland, CA police on suspicion of murdering his estranged wife. From the San Francisco Chronicle: "Hans Reiser, 42, was taken into custody at 11 a.m., hours after Oakland police and FBI technicians searched his home in the Oakland hills. His estranged wife, Nina Reiser, 31, has been missing since Sept. 3, when she dropped off the couple's son and daughter at his home on the 6900 block of Exeter Drive... Police made the arrest based on circumstantial evidence and have not found Nina Reiser's body, [Hans Reiser's attorney] Du Bois said. 'I have no idea what the circumstantial evidence is,' he said. 'When I hear what the evidence is against him, I'll make a decision as to whether he'll talk to them.'" kimvette writes, "While the disappearance (and possible murder) of his wife is tragic, Linux users will wonder where this will leave Reiser 4. If Reiser is found guilty, will Novell or IBM pick up the pieces and finish up Reiser 4 for inclusion in the kernel or is this the end of the Reiser filesystem project? Will there be any future for the Reiser filesystem, and if Hans is found guilty and the project is continued, will the project be renamed to avoid notoriety?"

38 of 1,651 comments (clear)

  1. Unbelievable by nubnub · · Score: 5, Informative

    He's arrested for killing his wife and this post asks what's the deal with Reiser 4? Classy kdawson, very classy.

    1. Re:Unbelievable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative
      Outside of a direct confession, all cases are circumstancial.

      That's incorrect -- eyewitness testimony isn't circumstantial.

    2. Re:Unbelievable by Eccles · · Score: 4, Informative

      Laci Peterson's body was found in San Francisco Bay, with DNA confirmation that it was her. A witness saw Peterson removing a large, heavy bundle from his house and placing it in his truck, which he then drove to a marina. The remainder of the evidence was indeed circumstantial.

      --
      Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
    3. Re:Unbelievable by Miguelito · · Score: 2, Informative
      You guys managed to send that Peterson guy to the death row withoud either a body, a confession or even a first hand witness. He was basically conviced to death for beeing a cheating asshole.


      Assuming you mean Scott Peterson.. try again. They did, in fact, find his wife's body and the unborn fetus.

      He wasn't convicted because he cheated mostly because of how he acted after her disappearance, and based on testimony of others.
      --
      - My favorite error message: xscreensaver, running on an old Sparc 5 w/ 8bit color: bsod: Couldn't allocate color Blue
    4. Re:Unbelievable by Dun+Malg · · Score: 2, Informative
      >>> That's incorrect -- eyewitness testimony isn't circumstantial. Circumstantial: 1. Of, relating to, or dependent on circumstances. ----> Includes every situation. It's all dependant on the crime, for instance.
      "Circumstantial evidence" has a specific meaning in law, so you might as well stick your vanilla dictionary definitions up your ass, for all their applicability. In law, eyewitness testimony is not circumstantial evidence.
      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
  2. Re:This brings up an interesting line of questioni by jonabbey · · Score: 4, Informative

    In the case of ReiserFS, the code doesn't get into the mainline kernel without it being reviewed by enough people that there is some hope of maintainability in the absence of one key person.

    The problem comes in when no one else wants to maintain a piece of code, but then that's why people pay Red Hat or SuSE cash for their otherwise freely distributable distributions.

  3. Re:This brings up an interesting line of questioni by Aim+Here · · Score: 4, Informative

    The answer is no. When an OSS maintainer gives up, you can still maintain the software precisely because you have the source so that there are ways of maintaining the software. There is no danger that reiserfs will break in Linux in the forseeable future, because the kernel maintainers will keep looking after it. If Hans Reiser and Namesys had kept the source code to themselves, then his users should be worried.

  4. Don't bother with ext3. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Don't even bother with ext3. It's a lousy hack on top of a 1980s-era design. That is shown by its excessive space consumption for inodes. It's shown by it's extremely long fsck times. It's shown by it's markedly decreased performance both when dealing with larger files and smaller files.

    There are far better options available. JFS and XFS are the best alternatives. Both are high-quality journaling filesystems. JFS is from IBM, while XFS is from SGI IRIX. Those are both names known for their high-quality, high-performance computing systems. So it's no surprise that JFS and XFS work so damn well.

    1. Re:Don't bother with ext3. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      XFS doesn't really use less space than ext3. Try setting up two 512MB filesystem, 512 byte block size -- one xfs, one ext3, then fill it with tiny files. Guess which can hold the most files? Guess which creates the most files faster.

      I was going to move my /usr/portage (gentoo) from ext3 to xfs to get some performance improvements, but I was in for a pleasant surprise when xfs actually ran slower and used more space. (This was on Linux 2.6.18)

      So please, quit spreading FUD.

      Ext3 isn't the best filesystem around, but it certainly isn't crap, and it's *very* stable, which makes it an excellent choice.

      As for resierfs, I have no idea. Every time I've used it, it has crashed on me. And you know what? That makes it a piss poor filesystem.

      http://linuxgazette.net/122/TWDT.html#piszcz

  5. Special website by Kangburra · · Score: 5, Informative

    A website aimed at helping to find her, Help Find Nina Reiser

    --
    Common sense is not so common
  6. Re:especially since that's the only reason it's he by nubnub · · Score: 2, Informative

    Reiser's past contributions and notoreity are why it's here. Not because of his involvement in Reiser 4.

  7. Re:Is he enough of a celebrity to be acquitted? by failure-man · · Score: 2, Informative

    Does the public give a shit about engineers? No? Then no.

  8. Additional info by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    http://www.nbc11.com/news/10046048/detail.html

    Chilling quote: "All avenues led back to Mr. Reiser being responsible."

  9. I hope his wife is OK... by Rooktoven · · Score: 2, Informative

    but that is rarely the case after a month...

    That said, he's pretty much of an arrogant asshole and Reiser4 is crap. Why would IBM pick it up when they sponsor the totally superior JFS?

    I say Reiser4 is crap from experience. It ran our system load through the roof and paralyzed us for 3 days until we pulled an all night session to move 1Tb of data to JFS, which has yet to cause a system freeze.

    --

    Acquiescence leads to obliteration
    1. Re:I hope his wife is OK... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Heavy load and this:
              while :; do sync; done

      JFS dies. FYI.

  10. Re:especially since that's the only reason it's he by arth1 · · Score: 2, Informative
    Reiser's past contributions and notoreity are why it's here. Not because of his involvement in Reiser 4.


    Up until posting this, hansreiser(6963) had two foes, and 375 fans. And my honest guess is that most of those 375 fans were fans because he was the ReiserFS creator, and knew very little about the man.
    (I never found the man palatable, so he's been on my "foe" list for years.)

    I wonder how long that fan list will be in the future, no matter how this case turns out.

    That it /is/ going to damage reiserfs is beyond any doubt, no matter whether he's proven innocent, not proven guilty, or proven guilty. The name is tainted, and a business executive will not likely touch anything related to that person, no matter whether it gets taken over and run by other people or not.

    Regards,
    --
    *Art
  11. Re:Just remember! by toxic666 · · Score: 2, Informative

    WRONG! Here's some civics, something American schools gloss over.

    In America, you are TREATED as innocent until proven guilty. Not presumed.

    The "executive" branch (police and prosecuters are part of the "executive" branch) arrested you because they believe you are guilty of violating a criminal law passed by the legislative branch. The judicial branch treats you as innocent by allowing you to post a reasonable bail based upon its interpretation of the merits of your case (past record, flight risk, seriousness of the crime, etc.).

    The police think they have a case and brought it to the prosecuters. The prosecuters think they can prove guilt in court. So somebody believes he's guilty. But he is TREATED as innocent by the court system and allowed to post bail to make sure he shows up in court until the judicial system decides his guilt or innocence.

  12. For More Info by smclean · · Score: 3, Informative
    This article, ran almost a month ago when Hans' ex originally went missing, contains quite a bit more background on the case than I've seen elsewhere:

    http://cbs5.com/localwire/localfsnews/bcn/2006/09/ 13/n/HeadlineNews/HOME-SEARCHED/resources_bcn_html

    --

    "'Yrch!' said Legolas, falling into his own tongue."

  13. SUSE dev proposes ext3 as default fs over reiserfs by szap · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just a SUSE developer's (Jeff Mahoney from SUSE Labs) opinion and suggestion. http://linux.wordpress.com/2006/09/27/suse-102-dit ching-reiserfs-as-it-default-fs/

    Note that it's not "dropping support for reiserfs", it's "not using reiserfs as default". You're still free to use ext3/reiserfs/xfs if you know they perform well for your workload.

  14. Possibly relevant Hans Reiser mail list post by quinnharris · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=reiserfs&m=1095355 06122706&w=2

    Hans Reiser:

    Well, I am going to try being honest and see what happens.

    I am more than 170k in debt, and Namesys is doing badly fiscally. A
    technical great success being stabilized now, but then there is my
    ongoing fiscal disaster. Once again, we are missing payroll. My wife
    is divorcing me in part because I keep going deeper into debt, and I
    thank her for divorcing me now rather than later. Unfortunately she is
    making the divorce messy enough to keep me from pulling Namesys out of
    the fiscal tailspin by consuming all my time with things like proving I
    am not making the fantastic amounts of money she claims I am. I hope
    next month is better."

    Others
    http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=reiserfs&m=1083531 78128079&w=2
    http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=reiserfs&m=9842467 5720520&w=2

  15. Re:That really sucks by sumdumass · · Score: 2, Informative

    Wow. I'm not sure I could say much more then WOW.

    Chances are the person you know of who only served 8 years wasn't a murderer but commited a homicide of some sorts. Now there is a difference between killing, murder and homicide. I can tell you didn't know that because of your reply here.

    Murder is the killing or taking the life of a person unjustly/unlawfully and involves the intention of doing so. You can kill someone unlawfully and still be justified and it not be considered murder. Homicide is the killing or taking of a life usualy without intention. There are several degrees of homicide in that how you acted before the actions interpret the amount of liability a person might have. Of course killing is the taking of a life.

    Now why is this important? because you obviously are getting something backwards. In 1998 representative Fox from pennsylvania stated that a released murderer was five times more likley to be re-arested for murder then other prisoners in general poulation. That's five times more likley to recommit the crime they already served time for then someone who just robbed a bank or cheated on thier taxes. Sounds a little more significant then 5%.

    Now, as for a person who murdered someone (not killed or was involved in a homicide) making thier own punishment. I don't think it is enough. It is like asking a kid what thier punishment should be for chewing gum in class and him saying spitting the gum out after it took an hour to decide and the flavor is gone. A murderer took a life intentionaly and probably for greed, he should have more punishment then living with the knowledge that he succeeded. As a matter of fact, I belive he should have his own life taken (wich isn't murder) from him so he isn't ever "five times more likley to recommit if released".

  16. Re:I don't know much about him by e40 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I live fairly close to where she disappeared. You probably don't know this, but there was an incredible effort to find her. Notices were posted everywhere, with her picture and information about her disappearance. From what I gather, it would be completely out of character for her to have left her children. As a parent, it is easy to tell how connected someone is to their kids. I'm sure her friends know this. For me, there is nothing in the universe that would make me leave my kid. Nothing. I believe she's dead.

  17. Re:That really sucks by penix1 · · Score: 2, Informative

    To both of you look here:

    http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles /2006/01/01/a_chronology_of_the_death_penalty/

    In my state of WV it is unlawful. So it by far is not lawful everywhere.

    B.

    --
    This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
  18. Oh, and also... by rufusdufus · · Score: 4, Informative

    Another disturbing thing is you'll see in many of these articles that the police claim Reiser was the last one to see his wife. However, the facts of the state that she went shopping after she left his house; her car was found with the groceries she bought. Clearly then, he was not the last person his wife, as the checker at the supermarket obviously interacted with her.
    I dont see how the story works: she drops the kids at his house, she goes shopping, and then..how does he end up killing her? He has the kids with him..at home..she's on the road. When does he have the opportunity to kill her?

  19. Re:I don't know much about him by crankyspice · · Score: 2, Informative

    there is mention of physical abuse (though in divorce cases it isn't uncommon to have such accusations).



    Relatively uncommon in California, which is a no-fault divorce state. That is, no reason whatsoever needs to be nor can be entered into the record as to cause of the divorce. (Though evidence of cause can be used in child custody fights.)

    --
    geek. lawyer.
  20. Re:Uh, hows that now? by crankyspice · · Score: 3, Informative

    Did the whole "everybody is an Enemy Combatant if we say so" thing start already and no one told me? What exactly is this "isolation" where you can't contact your laywer?

    Until and unless he's formally charged (indicted), the right to an attorney doesn't actually attach, except as has been judicially constructed/interpreted. For light reading on the topic: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/am endment06/11.html#1 If he hasn't been arraigned yet (and it sounds like he hasn't), he doesn't technically have a right to counsel yet. (The 'custodial interrogation' right to counsel, Miranda et seq., says that an interogatee, upon clear demand for the assistance of counsel, either be provided with assistance of counsel or that interrogation stop until and unless the party under custodial arrest voluntarily reinitiates contact with his interrogators. It doesn't mean the attorney automatically gets access to the guy.)

    --
    geek. lawyer.
  21. Re:That really sucks by oddfox · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here's a lot of reading material. Some more. A little more. And to top things off here's another article.

    Are there plenty of people who feel remorse for killing people if it was a crime of passion or one that they didn't truly want to do but felt compelled to anyways? Sure. But it goes both ways, and there are plenty of people who quite honestly are so deranged that they don't feel any remorse for what they've done. A peer-reviewed scientific study showing that most killers aren't wracked with guilt? I doubt anyone has the time or inclination to play Search-Engine-Monkey for you. Go ahead and get evidence your evidence before you start demanding it from other people. There are plenty of cases where the fact of the matter is that these killers are remorseless, you only have to know an inkling about psychology to understand that. In fact, plenty of these murderers feel justified fully in their actions.

    Listen to elucido, he's trying to help you understand the situation. Most people who kill do it because they have serious problems.

    --
    "We invented personal computing." - Bill Gates
  22. passion matters here more than intelligence by misanthrope101 · · Score: 2, Informative
    I was wondering why some guy smart enough and sane enough to develop a filesystem would go and murder his wife.
    Intelligence has little to do with passion, and passion drives our actions much more than we would like to think. I concede that most of the population who shot someone over a 6-pack of beer are probably from the less gifted end of the gene pool, but love, rejection, bitterness, etc., will dupe very smart people into doing very stupid things.

    And if you go to the more cold-blooded end of the murder spectrum, the killers actually get smarter, and outright sociopaths are often pretty bright. However, I base that on nothing more substantial than a hunch I get from what I've read, heard, and seen over the years, so don't bet any vital organs on it.

  23. Re:That really sucks by jcr · · Score: 2, Informative

    "He needed killin'" is an acceptable defense.

    You'reoversimplifying that quite a bit. Under Texas law (and I don't think any other states allow this), it's permissible to introduce evidence to impugn the character of the deceased as a murder defense. Basically, it's a justifiable homicide theory, and you have to convince the jury that the person killed presented a danger to the defendant or to the community. It's rather harder to win an acquittal that way than it would be (say) to claim self-defense.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  24. His situation in his own words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hans described his situation in some mails. His advanced filesystems are a great success technically, but his private life suffered a lot. He was divorced, his children taken away from him, he is in debt and Namesys is in a financial tailspin. Read it yourself:

    http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=reiserfs&m=1095355 06122706&w=2
    http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=reiserfs&m=1104438 35707976&w=2

  25. Re:That really sucks by Marcion · · Score: 4, Informative

    Holy reiserfsck, how bizzare, how fscking bizarre.

    Read this for another side of the story:
      http://cbs5.com/localwire/localfsnews/bcn/2006/09/ 13/n/HeadlineNews/HOME-SEARCHED/resources_bcn_html

    There are some other strange aspects to all this, the wife may have been having an affair, but (at least in UK) often divorce lawyers encourage clients to do a 'kitchen-sink' approach to try and wrest custody of the children, so her affair and his domestic violence are both suspect until we get more info.

    It will all come out if there is a body, or the wife turns up in Russia.

  26. Re:Prove that by RsG · · Score: 3, Informative
    I never said all psychopaths are criminals. I never said all psychopaths are violent. Read precisely what I said, psychopaths do not feel guilt, remorse, or empathy, and there are a lot of people who don't feel guilt, remorse or empathy, enuogh that I'd say it's normal. I'd guess around 20% of the population, this is a guess and it could be wrong, but it's enough people that there are people in your family, friends, people at work (like your boss), and ex-girlfriends/ex-boyfriends who were/are psycho. It's as common as any other trait, like fat people, everyone knows a few, or like short people, or tall people, etc.
    The figure I got off a google search in all of about 5 minutes was 3% of men and 1% of women. Note that those were the high estimates, not the low ones. 20%? You're dreaming, or else you have a seriously negative view of humanity.

    Moreover, you're asking me to prove things while you are, by your own admission, presenting your wild aproximate guesses as fact. You prove it.

    The average people almost always commit suicide immediately after they commit violent acts.
    Would this be another one of your wild guesses?

    There is a high suicide rate in prison, and for people awaiting trial. And there are plenty of murder-suicides. But that's a hell of a long way from "average people almost always kill themselves after commiting violent acts". And moreover, most of the murder suicides aren't exactly average either.

    Regardless of whether someone has commited a crime, most suicides are born of depression. This means that murderers who off themselve either planned suicide and decided in advance to take someone else with them (as in murder suicide, like the Columbine massacre), or else commited the crime, were driven to depression by guilt, and later killed themselves, which is not "immediately commiting suicide" as you phrased it. The impetus for self-preservation is stronger than guilt.

    A killer who does not also take their own life is not a de facto psychopath, which is what you seem to be claiming.
    --
    Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
  27. Re:That really sucks by NATIK · · Score: 3, Informative

    I don't know how it works in your country, but here in Denmark we DO NOT put people in prison to punish them, we put them in prison to rehabilitate them and to keep them away from society while they are being rehabilitated. Our sentences are very low aswell and when people get out depend on whether the prisons feel they have been rehabilitated (up to the max of what the judge sentenced).

  28. Re:Taught not trained by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 2, Informative
    Remember that humans are, and always have been, hunters. It is "in-born" to every human to be capable to kill other species. It is also "in-born" to every human to battle other humans for geographical area, just as it is in-born to thousands of other species. "If necessary" you too will kill (by this I mean that there are defineately ways to make you kill someone, for example, if you thought greater good would come of it, say in a hostage situation, or in self-defense). It's just your definition of "if necessary" that's different. That's something you were taught


    Humans are also social animals. We will kill for food or defense, and fighting for territory falls into both categories. But rational, stable people don't kill their own kind. Unfortunately, determining "their own kind" IS taught. A child brought up in a racist household might be a normal, stable person, but he's brought up to think of other races as "them" instead of "us". Ditto for religion, nationality, or any other dividing characteristics.
    --
    Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
  29. Re:I don't know much about him by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 2, Informative
    I'm sure her friends know this. For me, there is nothing in the universe that would make me leave my kid. Nothing. I believe she's dead.
    You sir, are an optimist. Few people enjoy the company of their children so much that nothing would make them leave. Offer a new life with a big house, a pretty spouse, security and comfort well over and above what you have now, throw in assurred finacial security for the offspring you leave behind, and you'd be surprised at the fraction of the population that soberly kisses their darlings farewell only to play Abba in the SUV as they drive away.

    "Mama, Mia! Here I go again!
    My my, how can I resist you!?"
    --
    May the Maths Be with you!
  30. Point Missed by virg_mattes · · Score: 2, Informative

    > Fortunately, I don't believe in a second life.

    You missed the spirit of his comment, pun intended. His comment is that the angry person's life is the second one wasted, after the loss of the first (the victim, assuming the victim and the angry person aren't the same, which would be the case in a murder).

    Virg

  31. Just as a side note about their upcoming divorce.. by CSG_SurferDude · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Reisers were married in 1999 and frequently traveled to Russia, where she was born. They separated in May 2004.

    Just long enough to get her green card

    Nina Reiser filed for divorce three months later, citing irreconcilable differences and saying their children "hardly know their father" because he was out of the country on business for most of the year, according to court records.

    "Verbal statements made in court" BECOMES "Court Transcript" BECOMES "Court Records". There is not anything here saying whether or not it was proven or not.

    Nina Reiser was granted a temporary restraining order against her husband in December 2004 after she reported that he had pushed her and was abusive to her. A year later, she agreed not to seek a permanent order.

    Temporary Restraining Orders are easy to get, and hard to keep. In a divorce, one of the favorite tactics (of both sides) is to file for a TRO. Usually these get thrown out of court some months later. Judges typically grant TROs because nobody wants to be the judge who denied a TRO against an abusive spouse. But most of the time, TROs are just stupid games that people play.

    Hans Reiser was accused earlier this year of failing to pay medical and child-care expenses as ordered by a judge, records show. He pleaded not guilty Aug. 25 to a civil contempt charge and was scheduled for trial in October.

    Again, it is very easy to "accuse" somebody. One of the games spouses play is to not send bills to the other spouse, and then file a civil suit against them for "failure to pay". This is usually yet another game in custody and visitation battles.

    Not that I am defending this guy, but the "evidence" in the article that he was a "bad man", just isn't any evidence at all.

  32. her blood found in his car by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    "Splatters of Nina Reiser's blood were found in the house and car of the missing woman's estranged husband, Hans Reiser, law enforcement sources said Wednesday.

    The sources also said that Hans Reiser removed the passenger seat of his 1988 Honda hatchback and that he attempted to hide the vehicle from authorities. This is the same car that his wife's blood was found in, sources said. Police are still looking for the missing seat."

    http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/ci_44 76687