The File-System Fallout of the Reiser Verdict 605
perlow writes "Yesterday, the Open Source community took an emotional hit when veteran Linux programmer Hans Reiser was convicted of first degree murder in the suspicious disappearing of his wife, Nina. While I won't go into the details of the case, as this has been covered extensively in the press, I would like to talk a little bit about how this verdict will impact the technology in play for file system dominance in our favorite Open Source operating system, Linux."
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Please stop using NTFS.
But at least Bill Gates hasn't killed his wife.
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Re:Dear Windows Users... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Dear Windows Users... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure he's not the only one.
Baaazing! Thankyou thankyou I'll be here all night.
Re:Dear Windows Users... (Score:4, Interesting)
Either way, when MS-DOS first came out, I don't recall anybody claiming that it wasn't an operating system.
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To most people, the "operating system" is the user interface. That's why some vendors get away with calling a collection of AJAX applications a "web OS". But we're not talking about what people perceive an OS to be, we're talking about what an OS does.
The question of whether some software is an OS is not a religious issue. You take the s [wikipedia.org]
Re:Dear Windows Users... (Score:4, Funny)
BIOS is the true OS... (Score:3, Interesting)
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My life is over.
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stochastic deaths (Score:2)
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Offtopic? WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
For the learning-impaired at "news for nerds", the parent's point was that the only thing that should matter to you or me about Hans Reiser is the file system he designed and the programs he wrote, and then only if you use the damned things.
Did you throw away your Naked Gun [wikipedia.org] movies because OJ Simpeon killed those people?
The tabloid mentality that seems to have overtaken the entire world makes me sick. The file system's designer's personal life is none of my (or your) business.
On a lighter note, the parent was wrong. Bill Gates doesn't strangle puppies, he shoots them! [wikia.com] And he doesn't stomp kittens' heads, he huffs them. [uncyclopedia.org]
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The Naked Gun doesn't require maintenance. Code does, especially when it has several outstanding issues (show of hands, who here likes the quality of reiserfsck?) and how fast the kernel iterates.
Namesys is dead in the water, and reiserfs will go with it.
Re:Offtopic? WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Reiserfs4 is pretty much dead... Unless somebody picks up the code and runs with it which could happen but I really wouldn't bet the server farm on that.
The simple truth is "Big Deal"
You currently have a choice between.
EXT3 which isn't the fastest but it does work.
JFS which is pretty feature rich and stable.
and XFS which is also feature rich and stable.
EXT 4 is coming soon and ZFS may be GPLd at some point.
The lose of ReiserFS to bit rot isn't the end of the world or really that big of a deal.
Now the lose of Hans Reiser. Well if he didn't do it then it is very sad. If he did do it then it is also very sad. That is just on the human level and nothing to do with FOSS.
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I consider any filesystem that can't handle thousands of small files in a single directory to be broken. And Hans Reiser's whole point about naming systems in his initial paper about Reiser 3 is perfectly true and seems to be being ignored by most people creating filesystems.
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What are you saying, there? The courts got it wrong?
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A different kind of file system? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:A different kind of file system? (Score:5, Funny)
mkdir("tmp");
chroot("tmp");
chdir("..");
But... (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm hoping... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Given that the code is Free, it's always been under the control of anyone who wanted it. Since no one had stepped up to the plate before now, I'm betting against anyone doing so in the future.
Re:I'm hoping... (Score:5, Insightful)
This doesn't make sense. There's a clear reason why nobody stepped up before: Hans Reiser. The guy was clearly a bit of a nutbag, however competent he may be at designing filesystems, and I surely wouldn't have wanted to wage a very public and protracted battle with him over his pet project.
There are lots of projects that can use programmers and leadership. One that has nobody running it is a lot more attractive to take over than one where the original creator is going to be lurking hatefully in the background, looking for an opportunity to stab you in the back. (Figuratively; but perhaps in Reiser's case, literally.)
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I'm hoping we'll forget this now (Score:5, Interesting)
Why wasn't it taken seriously by everyone?
- When it encountered problems, it crashed spectacularly. You didn't just lose a file or a block of a file, you lost entire trees and could get metadata instead of file data and vice versa.
- It lacked basic tools, like "dump"/"restore" or "freeze".
- The fsck rebuild process was a security nightmare. A user could craft a file with data that would appear to the fsck process to be metadata, and take over the system after a reboot. In typical arrogance, the solution was "don't reboot, then".
- It didn't support streams or compatible metadata, thus no Mac sharing or SELinux. SELinux in particular is a requirement for many big corporations right now, and not supporting it means no buy.
And, yes, the arrogance of the maintainer played a part too. But even with a much nicer guy running the show, it would not have been a serious contender for the throne.
It's time we forget ReiserFS and move on.
Re:I'm hoping we'll forget this now (Score:5, Funny)
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You don't find the fact that his wife had dated a confessed serial killer at all odd? (Not Reiser but the other guy that confessed to several murders)
He could of murdered his wife, but the situation is rather strange to begin with. Wouldn't be surprised if the wife showed up in Russia somewhere.
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Or maybe in Redmond.
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Odd? Maybe. Relevant? No.
Re:I'm hoping... (Score:5, Informative)
Sturgeon has a bit of a credibility problem in that none of the eight people he's confessed to killing are, um, dead.
And it's "could have".
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Yeah, it's odd. Lots of things about this case were odd. But that's why we pay people to spend months and months sifting through these things, rather than deciding them via Slashdot.
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that maybe control of ReiserFS will now be in the hands of someone who is not a total ****
Well, I've never been exposed to his inter-personal issues, but in reading the article, the journalist involved seems to think that ReiserFS is dead. I'd be rather surprised if that were the case. It's an amazing filesystem, and as far as I knew a few years ago, the only one capable of scaling performance reasonably for extremely large directories.
Hopefully, it will simply be forked (if needed) and continue to be developed now that the original author is clearly not going to be around to maintain it... wel
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It's an amazing filesystem, and as far as I knew a few years ago, the only one capable of scaling performance reasonably for extremely large directories.
ext3 supports huge directories. Implementing a hash table to store directories entries instead of a linked list isn't exactly rocket science.
He can appeal, of course, and as I understand it, it's a technical case that they have against him, so there's a stronger chance that an appeal could work than if there were direct evidence of his actions.
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I guess if his wife turns up in Russia he'll be set free fairly quickly.
I don't rate the chances of an appeal at the moment though.
Well, appeals are matters of law, not of guilt or innocence, typically. While the case against him has substantial issues (including his wife's friend having admitted to being a serial killer), the primary concern in an appeal is the validity of the process that lead to the conviction. If there's a process problem, then an appeal can work, and in purely technical cases (where there is no body, witnesses or confession), there are usually any number of possible angles for process questions to be raised.
That'
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And ReiserFS was notoriously slow for huge files, which these days are far more common.
Or, translated to slashdotese, is your pr0n collection gif files or mpegs?
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Can you please cite a source than can explain some of this?
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Press coverage (Score:2)
The same as it affected... (Score:5, Insightful)
It will affect ReiserFS the same as it affected the company that wrote the NTFS file system was convicted of their crimes. (being a monopoly).
Or when the creator of Unix (and the C language) was convicted of their crimes (being a monopoly)
Or the same as it affected Union Carbide when they poisoned a whole town killing everyone. (the former president will be jailed for life if he ever sets foot in India).
The thing is.. Things are decided on their merits, and price, etc. Not on their creators. Otherwise, Walmart would be bankrupt!
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So ReiserFS has lost both its organization head and its technical head. Most companies or projects would find it difficult to recover from that.
Ultimately, the code fo
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People would pay Namesys for support contracts, but only because they were getting the skills and expertise of Hans Reiser. Without that, there is nothing to buy.
With Microsoft, Bill Gates is important - look how much worse they are doing now that he is pretty much retired, but there are other people there. And of course, Bill Gate
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The other thing is... Software is supported by programmers. When the sole maintainer of a project is sent to jail for a very long time and denied access to email and the Internet, there's going to be some effect. You didn't think that California Prison inmates had Fibre-to-the-cellblock net access [72.14.205.104], did you?
A better comparison would be with what happened to the "Wheel of Time" books when their creator Robert Jordan was convicted of being dead.
Article a bit one-sided? (Score:2, Interesting)
So, probably with no money, my gue
Re:Article a bit one-sided? (Score:5, Informative)
True, the other developer moved the code and patches to his server months ago when the namesys.com site went down.
Rieser 4 Patches and Programs [zelnet.ru]
According to the article they are still in active development. They got patches for the 2.6.25 kernel so somebody is still working over there.
Source Article [news.com]
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There's no such thing as software without a developer.
Open source isn't some magical formula that makes software grow itself. There have to be people knowledgeable enough, and interested enough to work on it. Also, if the work is involved enough, there generally has to be someone paying them to work on it. Even in open source, core developers on big projects are usually paid for their work either directly or indirectly. It looks like the means of paying
So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Develop from Prison (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Develop from Prison (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Develop from Prison (Score:5, Funny)
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Good sience and inovations stands apart (Score:3, Interesting)
If this file system is superiour, then it should stand.
However naming the delete function 'Wife' would be lacking in class....
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I always wondered why most Open Source projects had names based on cute (or not so cute) puns or acronyms, but Reiser's file system bore his own name. Even Linus didn't want to name his project after himself [wikipedia.org]. In light of the stories of Reiser's behavior I'm reading in the press and here, it would seem he had more ego than class.
Not a lot, really (Score:4, Insightful)
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Stupid Article (Score:3, Interesting)
XFS (Score:3, Funny)
XFS (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothin to do in prison (Score:2)
ZFS (Score:2)
I can understand if people are not comfortable with using ReiserFS in light of what has happened. I never used it, so I cannot offer any opinions on whether it was any good
If people are looking for something different, why not ZFS [opensolaris.org]?
Sure, I know that Sun's commitment to Open Source is inconsistent and potentially suspect, but ZFS looks to be an impressive piece of technology.
So, why not ZFS?
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What happened? (Score:2)
They found no weapon, no body, no witnesses. In fact, last time I read about this case, there was no real solid evidence whatsoever. How could they possibly reach a conviction? Was new evidence introduced that I haven't heard of? Did his lawyers just suck?
I hope he appeals this, from all the news articles I read, it sounds like his case was the *definition* of "reasonable doubt."
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And there was reasonable doubt, but Hans Reiser himself systematically demolished it all over the course of eleven days of testimony that was wholly not believable.
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It is like Richard Dawkins trying to debate theology, or George W. Bush trying to pronounce words correctly, or Charles Mansion trying to run the NAACP, or Adolph Hitler trying to run a Jewish Temple. It just does not make sense, and they are better off le
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It's more that their client did.
From what I read, Reiser took the stand against his lawyers' advice, and it sounded like his own testimony is what put the nails in the coffin. He gave his accounting of events, reasons why his car was found the way it was, etc., and from all accounts it sounded like the jury felt sure he was lying.
TV crime drama is full of episodes where someone lies about what they know about a crime to cover up their extramarital affair or for some other reason t
If I remember correctly... (Score:2)
Re:What happened? (Score:5, Informative)
Now, you're right, that list alone creates a plausible but by no means airtight case that he killed her and disposed of the body. If that were all, I probably would have voted to acquit if I were on the jury.
But then Hans took the stand for eleven days, against his attorney's advice, and tried to explain all that. And he did such a massively poor job of it that the jury believed he was lying about why he'd done those things. He said he removed the passenger seat because he was sleeping is his car and wanted extra space; but in a Honda CRX, the passenger seat is probably the most comfortable part of the car to sleep in, and removing it leaves a non-flat surface with bolts and bars across it (Hans said that with a good sleeping bag he didn't notice). There was an inch of water in the interior because he hosed it out; Hans said he doesn't remember it bothering him, sleeping on the floor where the passenger seat used to be.
Since there's little worth lying about that's more important than being falsely convicted of murder, the jury concluded that his lies were covering up a murder. In short, he talked himself into jail. He's not the first defendant to do that.
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It doesn't need to be much more than "plausible." The jury decided that there was no room for reasonable doubt. If all juries were required to have "airtight" evidence before convicting, Charles Manson would be a free man (recall that he meticulously ensured he had no direct hand in the murders). It's possible that he didn't kill her. It's possible it was the Chinese spies,
Why not work from jail? (Score:2)
ReiserFS was already dead before today (Score:3, Interesting)
I was sad when I found out he was on trial. I had one of his quotes on my cubicle wall from him about development when I found out about the arrest. Hans Reiser is a good developer. Apparently he's not a very good person.
Recent versions of ReiserFS have had stability and performance problems for some time and will die a normal open source death on merits.
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I don't care if it's been said already... (Score:2)
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If he is a half-assed coder why don't you write a better filesystem.
Why is this form of rebuttal always trotted out? One's inability to do any better doesn't invalidate their original criticism. All those rejects on American Idol auditions are pretty half-assed singers and I can recognize that plainly (as can most people), but I'm certainly not going to claim I can do better because I know I suck as a singer.
Back to filesystems: thought it wasn't terribly common, I did have a ReiserFS filesystem throw up on me once a long time ago. Luckily I was just tinkering with a ne
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