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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?"
That wasn't in the original post. He added it later.
But honestly, how many people would think that even if it wasn't posted on the front page?
This brings up an interesting line of questioning. Are OSS projects that rely so heavily on a single person able to be trusted for widespread use? OSS and Linux zealots scream the advantages of using that kind of software, but is it a smart business decision to deploy something that could potentially lose all support if its project manager is in a fatal car accident? I'm the first to admit my own ignorance on a lot of the heirarchy of OSS projects. Are concerns like this valid or is the community able to pick up where someone left off with minimal interruption to clients?
Four roommates. No microwave. You do the math.
Probably a lot of people. But, what's wrong with that? It's natural for people to think of how an event will affect them.
:x
People need to remember that there are human lives involved here. There are also children in the mix. This is NOT a tragedy for the Reiser filesystem.
Really!
Well, that's what they tell us, anyway.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
If Hans Reiser wasn't the author of a somewhat well known filesystem, but instead some other random guy who was uninvolved in free software, his being arrested wouldn't be on Slashdot in the first place.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Are OSS projects that rely so heavily on a single person able to be trusted for widespread use?
Compared to a closed source project that relies so heavily on a single person, the open source project is a much safer bet.
Are concerns like this valid or is the community able to pick up where someone left off with minimal interruption to clients?
You should very much take those considerations into account. With open source, you have two advantages compared to the same project when it's closed: (1) you know who the project relies on, and (2) it is clear under what conditions the project can be continued.
We've all seen enough crappy investigative work to know that it's best not to speculate wildly and say things we'll all regret later and wait and see what unfolds. So for once, let's do that.
Do doctors who use information gleaned through Nazi human tolerance testing (i.e. most of them) support Nazis?
There are lives at stake here!
Actually, I appreciate the completely tasteless humor much more than the completely stupid serious comments on this. The humor recognizes and appreciates the absurb quality of all of this, and doesn't even try to propose a serious take on the matter.
Is it really funny? No. But horrible situations are sometimes relieved by nervous titters of black humor.
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
So long as he has a community of support, he won't commit another.
You can't know that. Being he only served 8 years, I imagine it was a crime of passion, rather than a premeditated act. I don't know what set him off the first time, but what's to say he won't react exactly the same way if he's ever put into that situation (or a similar situation) again?
Actually no.
I can not maintain the code.
Even if I had the skills, I don't have the time. And I can't afford to pay someone who can. So no - I can NOT maintain the code if it is intimately tied to a single developer. To suggest that I can is as farcical as suggesting that OSS is more secure because many eyes are critiquing the code - when in actual practice very few eyes are involved in most of the code on sourceforge etc.
Of course I can't know it for sure. But from memory, the reoffence rate for released murders is 5%. That is, most people don't do it again.
A couple of extra comments for everyone to think about:
- Most people who murder someone will probably spend the rest of their life fucked up in the head. They have created their own punishment, living every day with the guilt.
- Think about the _very_worst_thing_ you have ever done. Do you think you should be judged for the rest of your life on that one thing?
Well, generally when somebody gets accused under an unjust law or accused of something many of us don't consider a crime, lots of folks will rally to the cause and suggest donating for their defense.
When somebody gets accused of something we can all agree is unequivocally bad, like murdering the mother of his children, my reaction is "let justice take its course." This seems fair to me, especially when we have no idea what the evidence is against him. Lots of people get accused of lots of crimes all the time and I don't generally donate money to their legal defense unless I think the law under which they are being prosecuted is terribly unjust.
People are complex. There brains are complex. Sometimes there is no amount of love and support that can turn a guy around.
Secondly..Prison is the worst rehabilitation... Constant contact with other violent people usually is a negative influence.
Lastly, your logic is horrible. I'll use your line of argument in another situation:
I know a smoker who is 95 years old, therefore smoking is safe.
??? Well--Are you ready to say, "point conceded?"
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
You know, its comments like this (even in the semi-anonymous and lame-black-humor-filled world of Slashdot) that keeps our image down. No wonder most people don't care about our opinions and treat us with lack of respect.
What a load of sanctimonius bullshit.
Tell that to Leno next time he cracks a 9/11 joke.
Or Letterman next time he cracks an Iraqi occupation joke.
Or the SNL writers next time they do an Abu Graib skit.
People here are on slashdot are no different from people everywhere else.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Most people who murder someone will probably spend the rest of their life fucked up in the head. They have created their own punishment, living every day with the guilt.
Jesus H. Christ, can we PUH-LEASE leave this damned stupid argument behind once and for freaking all. SOME murderers, I am sure, feel guilty, but to state that MOST killers are wracked by guilt goes way, way, way beyond what evidence has repeatedly shown. Prisons are full of unrepentent murderers, as are the streets.
In other words, a healthy percentage of killers don't care for one second what they've done. There are various reasons for this, but look around before assuming that "most" murderers are just good people who have done something bad. The world is full of assholes who are assholes just for the sake of being assholes, and there are countless examples of this extending into the realm of murder.
-
Inventor of the term 'pardon my French'.
On the contrary, far from being crass, the fate of ReiserFS is the only part of this sorry subject that merits discussion on Slashot. Anything else, discussed in a forum of people who don't personally know those involved, is nothing more than lurid gossip
Actually people with 'normal moral values' do also object to the death penalty. Can you always be 100% certain the person being executed is guilty? Moratoria
GeekServ Unix Consulting Services (http://www.geekserv.com)
It depends whose life, and to whom, and what their criteria for determining importance are. Importance isn't a property of the world; it is a relationship between a mind and a thing. A child of mine would be more important than the entire US fleet - to me. Outside of peoples' minds, there is no such thing as "importance."
I don't know if it's all that sad... I'd never really heard anything of the guy before this, other than his name attached to his FS, and the wikipedia article was rather sparse, so I google'd around to get an idea of who he is.
You call for sympathy for the man, but as far as I can tell from this interview, and a few random forum threads around the internet, he seems like a really smart and clever, well-educated guy, a really good programmer, but kind of an arrogant douche. I mean, he talks about how he hates homework and wishes you could just study and then discuss to prove your knowledge, but then he stresses the importance of code review and benchmarking (which seem, to me, the "homework" of programming tasks) and belittles his own employees for not doing it well enough.
I'm not trying to flame the guy out or anything. Like I said, I knew nothing about him before my last 15 minutes of searching, but from what I saw in that little sliver (and I know that doesn't provice me a fully developed mental image of the man) it seems like he might deserve some of the jokes.
I'd say if you have sympathy or money to donate - give it to the kids.
And watch, I bet I get bad karma for just trying to point out that it seems (to the untrained eye) that he might have bad karma.
Exactly. Reiser hasn't yet faced trial, let alone been found guilty.
According to this Reiser lost custody of his children based on "secret information" the police have. How can you defend your rights when the evidence against you is kept secret?
I don't think there is any need to be pedantic here. Can you afford to run closed source applications knowing that the vendor could drop support? From a risk assessment standpoint, is it better to have access to the source code even if you could not personally do anything with it? At the very least, if the program is worth something to you, you have the option to drop some spare change into a bounty to have your problem fixed. And if the program is worth nothing to you, what difference does it make if it doesn't work for you?
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
I wonder if you'd change your tune if it was your wife or mother or daughter that was killed.
He probably would, of course. When a tragic event like that happens to a family, most of them would lose objectivity and be filled with regret, remorse, and hatred. That's why we need sane, objective people who have the capacity to see things clearly making these kinds of decisions, instead of bitter, reactionary victims.
Why does everyone forget this cornerstone of the legal system, an accused person is innocent unless proven guilty. It is very easy to accuse someone of something bad, but the accusation alone causes a lot of damage to reputation.
This doesn't change what I think of Hans Reiser at all. If he's convicted of murder, that's different, but nothing like that has happened. A husband is a natural suspect in such a case. I hope that his wife is OK, but I have no reason to believe that Hans is responsible.
When I was in highschool, our principal was accused of sexual misconduct due to some activities that allegedly took place with a student. This shocking accusation made the news, and all the parents were horrified. But very few people went to the actual trial, and when the man was acquitted it did not make the news. Give everyone their chance and let the legal system do its job.
As a person who helped Hans Reiser get some sponsorship in his early days and an early adopter of his filesystem in major corporate use I never would have expected something like this. It's a disaster for him but there isn't much we can do about it at this point aside from debate his innocence based on zero information. So what about Linux? Even if he turns out to be innocent (and I hope he is) the name is tarnished and the filesystem will probably languish. I was expecting reiserfs4 to be an important part of the future of Linux and Free Software's answer to WinFS. Now what will we do? We all know it takes ages, years even, to design, implement, and test a filesystem. XFS, JFS, ext3, etc. are nothing like reiser4 and lack it's capabilities. WinFS will someday be ready and will someday ship. And with this setback for Free Software the proprietary world has a huge head start over us.
:(
This is certainly a disaster for everyone involved.
Some murderers might be "rehabilitated" according to the justice system, but the fact remains that the flaw exists in their personality that once drove them to kill someone. If you were angry enough to actually kill someone (not out of self defense), I'm sorry, but that's a major flaw in your mental makeup. You can't magically change someone's brain or their personality. I understand the need to feel sorry for someone who sat in jail for 8 years and is now "being a productive member of society," but that doesn't change the fact that their victim had their life taken from them, and the judicial system protects society from that threat by jailing these murderers because the risk is too great to hope that they aren't driven to that point again.
"Sufferin' succotash."
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I know for sure that I've never been put into a situation that would set most passion killers off, I've never been repeatedly abused or had an adulterous spouse or anything. So I'm unwilling to yell "fry 'em" at everyone who kills someone when they get mad and go nuts because I'm not 100% sure I wouldn't. Of course I don't think I would, but neither do most people who do such things. If you can honestly claim that you would never kill someone for any reason you just don't understand what fear, anger and emotional rationalization can do to the nicest people.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Sure we can, its called having children. My life is only important to myself, my family, and perhaps a small circle of friends. Outside that, the greater mass of humanity doesn't give a flying fuck about me, you, or anyone else.
My patience is infinite, my time is not.
Think about it: two little (?) kids just had their world collapse. Their mother may be dead. Their father may be in prison. Aside from these two unimaginable losses, the kids probably also face the uncertainty of who will raise them at this point. They're scared, and can't turn to either parent for comfort perhaps for the first time in their short lives. IMHO the status of ReiserFS inclusion is completely insignificant compared to this issue.
Of course you're absolutely right, but Slashdot is not the appropriate place to discuss what will happen to Hans Reiser's children. It is the appropriate place to discuss what will happen to Hans Reiser's filesystem. You're more than welcome to do both, of course, but please don't complain about the latter here.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
What this example has is no place in a discussion about murder. The fact that our government continues to wage a failed war on drugs, a war on our own citizenry, involves so much less of a conscious decision and VASTLY LESS SIGNIFICANT moral conflicts on the part of the offender that it isn't even remotely applicable. At all.
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
so let me get this straight. You want to murder someone for commiting a murder? That makes you (or the state, rather) just as bad.
... Murder is an illegal killing, the preceding are legal. The State does have the right to kill, individuals do not except in self defense. Bad, or more accurately moral, only comes into play with respect to when the State decides to use such power. If everyone convicted of murder was executed, I'd lean heavily towards the immoral label. There are erroneous convictions and an execution can not be undone, it might be cheaper to warehouse the MF'er, the MF'er might suffer more by living, ... However, if it is an extreme case and the circumstances remove the doubt (caught in the act, DNA versus picked from a lineup, etc.) then I would lean towards the moral label.
Execution is not murder, self defense is not murder, military combat is not murder,
You know, even murderers can be rehabilitated. I've met a guy who killed his wife. He spend 8 years in prison and now he's out being a productive member of society. So long as he has a community of support, he won't commit another.
That is a highly defective appraisal, "so long as he has a community of support." Rehabilitated is when someone won't murder, regardless of a community of support. I had a Psych professor who used to believe as you seem to. His opinion changed after spending years volunteering at a state prison. He learned that many criminals simply adapt to their environment. When in prison where there is a much greater likelihood of being caught and harsher punishment they behave, when returned to a society where they are likely to get away with it they revert. Predator -> Model Prisoner -> Predator, repeat. Actual rehabilitation is rare. The problem with a murderer is that the cost of finding out if they are truly rehabilitated can be quite high. Society may be better off with murderers being permanently removed, life with no parole.
On the other hand, just ignoring the problem will drive some of those people to revenge killings - this is what happens in societies that break down, like Iraq. The government is seen as powerless or uncaring, so people take matters into their own hands...
... oh, hold on, no they're not. Must be something wrong with your logic.
And of course this is a real problem in the EU where the death sentence is illegal because of a variety of treaties. Revenge killings are commonplace and
They ALLWAYS suspect the ex-first unless there is no way on earth the Ex could have done it. There have been many times some one has been arrested, evwen by the FBI, for a crime then released when they realised they had the wrong person. She could have been a victim of a Serial kilelr, or a random act of violence. The groceries left in the car do look suspicious but does not mean he did it, unless they have evidence to the contrary.Then again they have arrested people without any evidence and just on "HEe is the EX it must be him".
It's funny, because I was thinking of Godwining this thread with Nazi research. Would someone really turn down a treatment if they learned the doctor came up with it using Nazi reasearch? I doubt it. Likewise, I don't see why someone would throw away a filesystem because of an incident completely unrelated to its development.
Now, that isn't to say there aren't violent psychopathic criminals. Most serial killers, and violent sex offenders who target adult women, would qualify. And it is true that they are extremely hard to rehabilitate (some would say impossible). But they aren't the only ones behind bars. In fact, I'm not even convinced they represent a signifigant fraction of violent criminals - the numbers I've seen vary wildly, which suggest to me that nobody knows how many of them exist with any certainty.
To give them as an example of the futility of rehabilitation is utterly ridiculous. It's like taking a rabid dog as a typical example of what most strays are like.
The "average" person is quite capable of murder, given the right incentive, or the right lapse in judgement. Most "crimes of passion" would qualify. Do you really think somebody who, to give an example, kills their wife after catching her in bed with another person is automatically psycho? Granted a psychopath put in that position is more likely to commit violence than an average person, but that doesn't make the average person incapable of murder, it merely makes him statistically less likely to commit it.
To presume all who commit crimes are suffering from mental illness, or are in some way less human, is a common error. We wish to distance ourselves from those we consider evil, by claiming that we could never do such a thing. But make no mistake; this is denial, plain and simple.
That's not to say that there aren't criminal psychopaths in the world; rather it is to admit that average, mentally healthy people, under the right conditions, can do things we as a society consider monsterous. For every psycho killing people at random, there are a dozen "average" people killing for revenge, for profit, for ideology, or for any number of other reasons.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Your evidence is mostly about serial killers. Most murderers are not serial killers. Crimes of passion like this one (if it was one; we don't know much about the case yet) are usually committed by people who have never killed before rather than psychopaths. Certainly these extreme cases exist, but they are a very different case study than the overwhelming majority of murders.
"... The standard interview isn't going to do the trick with this guy..."
I, too, used to think that a smart person, taking the time to consider their responses, could easily confound an interrogator.
Now I'm not so sure.
I've changed this opinion, very recently during an ongoing "talking therapy". Although the psychiatrist isn't trying to get me to confess to the execution of a crime or to implicate myself in a criminal matter, she is very interested in getting at the best version of my truth regarding my actions and experiences.
She's extremely skilled at spotting the inconsistencies, the loose threads, the big gaps in my narrative, what is unsaid, what is paraphrased, what is glossed-over as unimportant... Then by redirecting the discussion, she can home in on what really happened, sometimes resulting in important, sometimes uncomfortable revelations.
Add in the pressure of a murder charge, the much more oppressive nature of the police interview, the fact that you are (hypothetically) lying for the hugest stakes; all the while a skilled interrogator, backed by an investigative department and a team of researchers, is looking for that one loose thread that doesn't fit. Just the slightest tug on the smallest thread can unravel a whole garment.
I wouldn't fancy my chances, personally speaking.
Political language
The Amish merely walked the walk instead of just talking the talk. I don't think any religion can point to all or even a simple majority of its adherents and say, truthfully, that "Those people live according to their beliefs." Nearly all religions (and, without trying to write a book on the subject, I have to say that Christianity is the most severe in this regard) require more, for lack of a better word, "goodness" from its followers than any human being can deliver. Even the Amish realize this and allow their younglings to taste the world before making an informed decision to adhere to the practices of the community for life. Their system works well for them and illustrates what Christianity *should* be. I don't mean the physical trappings, the dress, the low-tech, the separation. I mean the state of the spirit and how adherence to spiritual principles provides certain guidance even when the bad old world busts in and murders your family members.
Inner peace like that comes at what, to a non-adherent, seems to be a very high price. Whether it is or isn't and whether it should be paid is a decision for each individual. It's too bad that most people never consciously make that decision and instead choose to pursue what they think of as "life," only to find that when that life throws them a curve they don't have the principled, spirit-based skills needed to handle the situation.
The Amish are different in that regard. In Slashdot parlance, the Amish have mad skillz. :-)
I would be interested to know how many of the people commenting have been personally acquainted with a murder suspect. I was, once. Air Force guy, he was deployed, his wife fooled around on him. She ended up shot one night. He had taken the kids to a party that night, but I don't think he had any witnesses to account for how he was spending his time at the time of the murder.
Luckily, he had good enough luck/lawyer/whatever that he remained free. I was at a cafe near the base one time and I heard a couple of deputies/cops discussing the case. Their take? They knew it was him, they just couldn't get enough evidence together to convict.
Fast forward a year later, they found the guy that really did it.
Moral of the story--if she's sleeping around, her husband is likely not the only person she's pissed off. Oh, and cop "instinct" is why we need very picky, painstakingly applied laws about collection and use of evidence.
Liberty uber alles.
The smart person keeps their mouth shut and asks for a lawyer.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Many people seem to bring out this "won't bring back the dead" viewpoint as justification for letting go of rage.
I see it as exactly the opposite. Let it sink in: *nothing* will ever bring back this person who was killed. They will *never* experience a joyful day again. Their friends and loved ones will *never* get to see them smile again.
And people are just supposed to go, well, to heck with it?
I'm not advocating the deliberate retention of anger. But genuine loss and anger and the desire for retribution are the products of much more than Ghandi-like hand clasping can be counted on to address. A person who can lose a loved one to murder and can walk away and live a happy life is a wonderful and beautiful thing to behold. A person who cannot is entirely understandable.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
yes, yes jokes are easy.
/. to read some of the shit below after being released from jail it would be a cold day in hell before you'd get another line of code out of me.
But I can tell you one thing, if I were Hans Reiser, possibly wrongfully arrested and I came back to
unbelievable.
Have a heart. Let's hope she's only missing, not dead, and that if she is dead Hans didn't do it so his kids will have at least one parent to share the loss with, rather than one to miss and one to learn to hate.
MP3 Search Engine
that isn't to say there aren't violent psychopathic criminals. Most serial killers, and violent sex offenders who target adult women, would qualify.
So are you saying violent sex offenders who target children aren't psychopaths? What about psychopathic people who target men? (sorry to nitpick, but as someone who works in that field, some comments like that catch my attention)
In fact, I'm not even convinced they represent a signifigant fraction of violent criminals - the numbers I've seen vary wildly, which suggest to me that nobody knows how many of them exist with any certainty.
That's because it takes time to measure, and gather evidence. This isn't easy to do without the money/staff/training/desire of state and federal prison systems, and even that is only identifying psychopaths who have been caught for whatever they have done. And psychopaths don't make it any easier to identify themselves by doing what they do well - lying.
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
Actually, no. When I wrote that, I wasn't judging the Amish as superior. I was simply pointing out that true Christian belief (requiring, as I've expanded on the topic in another post in this thread, lots of hard work) will equip anyone with skills to handle evil when it attacks. I was citing the Amish as having made practical strides in achieving this, so much so that when their attitudes wind up on the evening news people are shocked.
Christians who have made much effort at all to understand their religion are not shocked by this. This is the sort of thing the faith requires. Indeed, I'll go further and say that anyone should be able to do this. You don't have to establish a separate society (though that is the method the Amish chose) nor do you have to dress funny or eschew violent movies.
The Amish are human. I didn't say otherwise. According to Christian doctrine, every single one of them is flawed and sinful and not deserving to be in the presence of God. IOW, they're just like everybody else. However, (and this is what I think is admirable) you make a good point when you say
That is precisely what I find admirable about the Amish. They've made the effort to meet that challenge and, by and large, they've succeeded. You do a fine job of pointing out that neither the people nor their society are perfect. As a Christian, I accept that and consider it no real indictment; we and our institutions are all imperfect.
But how many societies would react with anything other than rage after the attack suffered by the Amish at that schoolhouse? Few, if any, I'd say. I know I'd be screaming for blood. The Amish didn't. It seems obvious to me that they're doing something right. I doubt their solution scales, but it's awfully nice to see a working prototype.
And now, after making nice and essentially agreeing with everything you said, I do have one strong negative reaction to your post. Here's the relevant passage:
I'm not sure what to do with that. It seems wrong on so many levels that I fear I'm misunderstanding you severely. It's not a "failing" of Christianity to refuse to accept basic human traits. We accept that the nature of man is what it is. And what it is, is sinful. Christianity isn't in the business of creating better humans (though that's a nice side effect that *should* be universal and is actively encouraged); we're in the business of seeking forgiveness for the flawed, sinful creatures we are.
So are you saying that "basic human traits" should be accepted, not suppressed, and that would somehow lead us to a better society populated by better humans? Since Christianity holds that many "basic human traits" are sinful and that *not* accepting them but striving against them through various means is part and parcel of being a Christian, I think you'll find that one a very hard sell.
So, did I miss your point somewhere? (About this one little thing, remember. For the most part, we're pretty much in sync on most of what's been discussed.)