Linux visionary convicted of murder
Linux visionary Hans
Reiser has been convicted of first-degree murder for killing his estranged
wife in 2006 and faces life imprisonment.
Reiser, founder of Namesys
which develops the Linux-based Reiser file systems, was charged with the deliberate
and premeditated murder of Nina Reiser by an Oakland, California courthouse
after an almost six-month trial.
The fate of the troubled ReiserFS and Reiser4 file systems may be sealed, following
media reports that Namesys has ceased commercial activity and the rapid loss
of support for the latter system in the open source community.
ReiserFS was the first journaling file system included in the Linux kernel
and is the default system for a number of distributions including Elive, Linspire,
and Xandros.
Reiser4 is a separate redevelopment which has failed to gain traction in open
source communities, despite receiving funds from the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Linspire.
Novell
withdrew its commitment to use Reiser4 in its SUSE Linux distribution, and opted
for the more popular ext3 file system.
Jonathan Corbet, founder of Linux news Web site LWN.net,
told Computerworld US the Reiser project was stymied after the arrest of Hans
Reiser in October 2006.
"Had Hans not been arrested, there is a reasonable chance that Reiser4
would have made it into the kernel by now," Corbet said.
"The end of Namesys as a functioning company is what really stopped progress
with Reiser4.
"There are still a couple of people putting some volunteer effort into
Reiser4, so it could, just maybe, still make it into the mainline [kernel] someday,
but progress is very slow and there's not a whole lot of people who are interested
anymore."
The conviction was handed down amid a lack of evidence including the body of
Nina Reiser, possible weapons, and motive.
The Reisers were separated at the time of the murder, and were in the middle
of a contentious divorce and battle for custody of their two children.
Hans Reiser was arrested a month after the killing after authorities discovered
traces of blood in his home and car. The court also heard that Reiser had removed
the front passenger seat of his Honda Civic and hosed the interior.
Jurors agreed with prosecution that there was enough circumstantial evidence
to convict the 44 year old of first degree murder.
William DuBois, Reiser's attorney, likened Hans to a harmless platypus, apparently
in his defense, and "welcomed all vultures" to place an offer to buy
Namesys.
(Elizabeth Montalbano contributed to this report.)
» posted by abennett
Computerworld Australia
Symantec Backup Exec 12 and Backup Exec System Recovery 8 deliver industry leading Windows data protection and system recovery. Download this whitepaper to find out the top reasons to upgrade and how to get continuous data protection and complete system recovery.
Data and system loss — from a hard drive failure, malicious attack, natural disaster, or simple human error — can happen anytime. Don’t leave your business vulnerable. Make sure you have a secure recovery strategy in place. Symantec's latest backup and system recovery technology can efficiently restore critical applications, individual emails and documents and even restore your entire system in minutes in the event of a loss.
Businesses face a growing challenge to ensure that the IT environment is properly protected. Backup Exec 12 integrates with other applications in the Symantec family of products, to complement your current data protection strategy, keep your data securely backed up and make it recoverable when you need it most.
