Jul

Hans Reiser’s Story

Rai

Linux, News Tags

Little did I know that the genius mind behind ReiserFS is currently in jail for being accused of his wife’s murder. It came to me like an urban legend that spread to the entire FOSS community like a joke chain-letter gone out of hand. And now, he is no longer known for giving birth to a file system, but for killing his own wife, Nina Reiser.

Hans Reiser owns the software company, Namesys, and is the head software engineer of ReiserFS, a filesystem developed for Linux Operating Systems. ReiserFS is his masterpiece. It is not like any other existing file systems. It uses a unique algorithm that frequently arranges bits of data instead of fixing them at one place, not only maximizes space but also speeds up file searching. Reiser4 is the latest version of this visionary system but its development has been stopped since Hans Reiser is facing serious accusations.

Hans’ wife was reported missing and her car was found parked near Hans’ house six days later Police found drops of blood that was later confirmed as Nina’s blood and a book, Masterpieces of Murder. Hans also was under police surveillance and is now locked up in a jail. It is not only Hans who is suffering but his file system company is also experiencing severe damages as some of the computer manufacturers have removed ReiserFS from the bundled Linux Operating System. Not to mention his 2 young kids. I know for one how it feels like to lose your mother at a very young age.

Then, an update to this news has come up and may be used to solve the case. Sean Sturgeon, Hans’ long time friend, admitted that he had previous relationship with Nina and he has killed eight people before. Shocking as it can be, this stirred up things.

Hans does not seems like a violent person to me. Keeping my mind open, this might have been a crime of passion since Hans was aware that his best friend and wife was having an affair. For all we know, this could be a setup to keep Hans away from Nina and their children. There are countless possibilities but I hope that this will all soon be over and Hans will be proven innocent.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-07/ff_hansreiser?currentPage=all