Slashdot Mirror
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?"
I think the original poster had a case of "everyone thinks it, but we shouldn't say it out loud".
If she went grocery shopping after she dropped off the kids with him, doesn't he have a good alibi? They did find her car with grocery bags inside abandoned somewhere. It appears that the investigators were presumptuous unless there is some additional information they have that they did not release.
Just my $0.02
This isn't meant to be funny or insensitive ... but if he did do it and is found guilty it seems like he'll have a bunch of time on his hand. You know, with the long jail sentence and all. Is their a reason why he can't continue working on this project from jail? Also, working on a OSS with your free time in jail seems like it might get you some good behavior points.
A very important question.
A coworker of mine uses an indicator he calls the "bus factor" to determine the likelihood of discontinued support for a particular tool or library.
The "bus factor" is simply defined as "the number of people who have to be hit by a bus before the fundamental understanding of the underlying codebase is lost."
garethw
When Jason Haas was in a car acciedent linux PowerPC suffered. But eventually others pick up and run with it. He was alright
/ 089246&mode=thread
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/03/24
Interesting to note the different temperment of slashdot articles 6 years ago. No jokes..
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.
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.
I agree. Natural enough for people (as people) to ponder that, but a woman is (presumed) dead. Asking how this will affect anything so ephemeral as a piece of software is absurd. That should never have been written.
I mean, besides being crass, it's also obvious -- so why point it out? Sure, we all naturally wonder what might happen to the software, but is it worth actually discussing?
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
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.
One does not preclude the other.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
From TFA:
Du Bois complained today that police had not allowed him to meet with his client after the arrest. He said investigators were keeping Reiser in isolation.
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?
sic transit gloria mundi
And why is that exactly? People should get credit for their contributions to society, just as they are punished for causing harm to the same. Nobody is suggesting letting convicted murderers go free, but perhaps someone who led an exemplarily life - volunteer work, good parenting, clean record - until the age of 40 shouldn't spend the rest of his/her life in prison for a single murder. Certainly a person who still have a high potential to contribute shouldn't be denied this opportunity even in jail. Think of a PC/broadband setup in a cell, parole to work in a science lab, canvas and paint and so on. Would you deny pen and paper to a jailed poet?
Extreme stress can do it.
Every person has a breaking point. Not everyone breaks in the same manner, but eventually everyone will break.
I know that financial problems and a dissolving marriage are huge source of stress. Who knows what else he is dealing with? (who knows if he even did it)
If your sentence is "life" then yes. I do think our system needs revamped in that a person who served their FULL sentence (not on parole / probation) honorably should, after a short time (say 5 years), have that issue expunged from their record. It is IMO unfair to continue to punish a person for things they did 20-30 years ago.
Let me give you a true story that I think is tragic. I have a co-worker that was convicted of felony possession in Florida 25 years ago. He served his entire sentence without ever looking at another drug and in fact is so anti-drug today it is nauseating. The reason he is anti-drug isn't because of the drugs but because of his experiences to this day of the conviction and continued punishment. He applied for a job at one of the counties in my state that is identical to the one he holds now that he has been doing for 6 years. They dug up that 25 year old conviction because it was the only distinguishing detail between him and the other person applying for the job. Guess who got the job. He is also barred from participating in elections because of it. His conviction happened in another state 25 years ago and he is barred from elections in this state!
Having said that, if you have not served your full sentence honorably, then you still owe that to society as deemed by the courts. OTOH, if you did serve your time then you should be allowed to move on.
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.
Well, point me at a peer reviewed scientific study that shows that most killers aren't wracked with guilt. Come on. You said you had evidence.
Note that this guy is very smart and very cockey. This isn't Scott Peterson making anchor weights in his garage. The standard interview isn't going to do the trick with this guy. If he did do it I bet he thought of a special way to get rid of the body. And now we have OJ going to LUG meetings. Same deal even if he didn't do it.
... many of the Amish actually attended his funeral and mourned his death./ 10/07/national/a191914D02.DTL
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006
I can't preach to anyone here about hate and revenge myself, due to my past reactions to things, but what those Amish people did really impressed me. Any members of the phoney religions of peace on here(you christians, muslims, jews, etc...) might want to take some notes from the Amish. I realize they are a christian sect, but their EXAMPLE spoke to me louder than the millions of words I've heard come from christians(or the other two "religions of peace"). If all religions did their preaching that way, they'd make the world a better place, instead of the shithole they seem bent on turning it into in the name of their "faith".
It is the general consensus in the psychological community that a conscience is something to be trained.
Don't let the gravity of the accusations prevent you from running the classic experiment with this. Ask a 5 or a 6 year old child to kill his brother/sister/pet/... (Be prepared for the situation that he might actually try to do it). You will obviously need to stop the interaction between the "killer" and his "victim" shortly after. Then ask the kid what happened. Why it did/did not do what you asked. You will be very surprised by the answers.
Child soldiers are a very clear illustration of what can happen if a child's conscience is badly trained. These children are trained to kill at an age of 5 or 6 (12 at the most) and they kill. They don't stop, they don't pause. They don't think they've done anything wrong.
Lots of people think this is related to the motivations of terrorists, where violent religious conviction takes precedence over rationality.