The story of Hans Reiser, the eccentric file system programmer, is a tragic one. The author of the ReiserFS was arrested under suspicion of the murder of his wife Nina Reiser in 2006, and was declared guilty in April 2008. Some still placed doubts about the conviction, stating that he might be innocent. It now seems that all doubt has been quelled, since Alameda County District Attorney Thomas Orloff has revealed that Hans Reiser will disclose the location of Nina's body for a reduced sentence.
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Member since:2006-01-16
I disagree. It's right that this is not the place to discuss earthquakes. And live has to go on, etc. Sure.
The problem I see here is that we are talking about someone being murdered. If we do this, we should do it respectfully. Saying "there is news in the murder case. My opinion: please let the filesystem survive!" is just inappropriate.
If you talk about these things, you should mind what you have to say about it. Or just don't do it. That's my opinion on this. Think about being a family member googling on news about this case and reading this. How would you feel about this? (I'm not talking about cencorship here! Sure ReiserFS is another interesting topic! But if you talk about this case and you want to introduce a personal complaint about what happened, it should not be solely about the future of the file system!)
Member since:2005-06-29
Except, that's not what the news item said. The news item said that I find it unfortunate that a piece of code A LOT of people have worked on is now more or less reduced to nothing solely due to the actions of one man.
Look, when a football player's family member dies, right now, during the European Championships, the sports news isn't going to be about how sad it is for everyone - no, it's going to be about how it is going to affect his or his team's performance, and how that would affect the standings and outcome of the tournament.
Harsh, but that's reality. Sure, it sucks for the kids and family that a person was murdered here, but 1) I can't feel sorry for all the misery in the world, and 2) we're a tech news website, and it's the tech aspect that matters - not the personal aspect.
Cold, harsh, but/like reality. I'm sorry.
Member since:
2005-07-24
Not cynical. And quite appropriate. The events surrounding Hans have effects upon a lot of people. These kids happen to have loving grandparents to take care of them. Far worse atrocities are occurring in the world at this very moment. We can't and don't mourn all of them. Getting all somber and respectful about one that happens to make the news is well intentioned, but essentially hypocritical.