this post was submitted on 21 May 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] [email protected] 73 points 5 months ago (5 children)

Hans credits his improved social and communication skills learned in prison among other details shared in the public letters.

I thought prisons were meant to cause more trauma and help ensure people never leave so as to increase profits?

[–] [email protected] 57 points 5 months ago (2 children)

That's only for minorities and poor people.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

And mainly in third world countries, like the US.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

Some prisons might be better than others, some people might be able to withstand the system within and work on themselves.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (3 children)

He is locked in California, a fairly progressive and leftist state i think , I am not entirely certain all that therapy is a good thing, i think i watched a documentary saying that psychopaths only learn from therapy how to be better manipulators and i feel like he sounds like psychopath even now.

With that said if he gets out of prison i think he should be allowed to participate in FOSS (when someone reviews his contributions), i can't help but wonder if his reportedly unhinged behavior on the kernel mailing list was handled better (e.g. mandating he will go to therapy) the murder would not have happened.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

The prisons he was in previously definitely are not the touchy-feely kind. These days he's in California Health Care Facility, which is geared toward prisoners with significant mental health problems (notably, multiple serial killers). So, therapy of some kind definitely makes sense. However, Reiser's been denied parole each and every time he's been up for it (next review in 2025), so it is unlikely that he's getting out.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I feel like it is impossible to know enough details to make any kind of conclusions. I do not think foss should check criminal records though.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

i feel like he sounds like psychopath even now.

I think it's rash to judge the tone of his writing like that. It can be a struggle to identify and admit one's flaws, and it's certainly a struggle for most people of the modern era to write elegantly with only pen and a few sheets of paper.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Yes, most people experience prison in the way you described. There's always exceptions, and like someone else said it's in California. Not a left wing state but the closest you'll get in the US.

If the system was so great at rehabilitation the reoffender rate wouldn't be so insane.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I don’t think it’s an American prison.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Edit: Excuse me, he's in California Health Care Facility, which is a state prison which is geared toward patients with long-term medical needs (acute chronic diseases, debilitating injuries) and acute mental health needs (which Reiser definitely fits the profile of). He was transferred out of San Quentin some years ago.

[–] [email protected] 73 points 5 months ago

Man what a wild ride ReiserFS has been. I remember when it was the mainline FS in a lot of Linux distros. Good on Hans to right some wrongs. Prison has done some good on him

[–] [email protected] 52 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This is the best summary I could come up with:


While ReiserFS is obsolete and will eventually be dropped from the upstream Linux kernel in Linux 6.10 is one last ReiserFS change that was requested by former lead developer Hans Reiser.

ReiserFS lead developer and convicted murderer Hans Reiser a few months back wrote letters to be made public apologizing for his social mistakes and other commentary.

In his written communications he also made a last request for ReiserFS in the Linux kernel: "Assuming that the decision is to remove [ReiserFS] V3 from the kernel, I have just one request: that for one last release the README be edited to add Mikhail Gilula, Konstantin Shvachko, and Anatoly Pinchuk to the credits, and to delete anything in there I might have said about why they were not credited.

Hans credits his improved social and communication skills learned in prison among other details shared in the public letters.

Per the indirect request by Hans Reiser, SUSE's Jan Kara has now altered the ReiserFS README file with the changes going in today to the Linux 6.10 kernel.

The change landed today as part of the linux-fs merge to Linux 6.10.


The original article contains 203 words, the summary contains 187 words. Saved 8%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

That’s actually surprisingly wholesome. It’s always wonderful to see people really putting in the effort towards personal growth. It’s good for them, and it’s also good for everyone else.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 months ago (3 children)

The guy had a friend who admitted to 8 murders and he himself murdered his wife who was the translator for a Russian mail order bride catalogue... Woah. Its hard to believe a person like that could contribute to open source.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 5 months ago (10 children)

You are discussing on a platform created by a man who praises people like Lenin & Castro. Richard Stallman resigned over some comments on Epstein victims. Free software is like that sometimes.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Free software is like that sometimes.

Anything is like that. The inventors of a great many things weren't good people. Just because people do great things, doesn't mean they are great people. Nazi doctors found out a lot about the human body by torturing them and/or treating them inhumanely. Probably a lot was discovered during the torture of humans and ignoring human rights (which probably didn't exist at that time).

Closed source software isn't better. It's run by people who devalue their workers, other humans, and in fact the entire world except people like them.

Anti Commercial-AI license

[–] [email protected] 51 points 5 months ago

Nazi doctors found out a lot about the human body by torturing them and/or treating them inhumanely.

That is a myth. The documentation left behind by them had little to no scientific rigor, and basically nothing of value was gained from it. The situation was even worse on the Japanese side, where even the visiting nazis thought they were going too far and, again, nothing of value was gained.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

A person like what? There's no connecting thread between morality, emotional maturity, and programming skills.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Who is going to stop them. It’s not like there’s a gatekeeper.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Huh. For some reason, I thought he died a while ago.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

For the uninitiated: his wife was murdered by him.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Yeah, I know... For some reason I thought he died in prison years ago, but I have no idea where I got that idea

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (6 children)

whats the recommended method of dealing with old reiser partitions once kernel support gets removed?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Migrate them to a modern filesystem, presumably. ext4 is extremely reliable, btrfs is less proven but much more featureful with copy-on-write and snapshots.

This isn't any type of surprise, ResierFS was marked obsolete some time ago now.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Btrfs is well supported and stable

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Yeah, people have been saying btrfs to be untested for more than a decade by now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

I like btrfs but I've personally had problems. Protip: DO NOT USE THAT WINDOWS DRIVER

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

i guess i'm asking how do i migrate them to newer filesystems once kernel support is removed. surely i'll still be able to modprobe it back in...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Use a kernel version that still has support to perform the copy before upgrading? If already upgraded, boot to the old kernel? Boot from a live iso that has support?

I mean, this isn't exactly a hard problem to solve...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I guess I gotta put an old Slackware cd in with that drawer full of reiser drives.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

The 6.10 kernel has not even been released yet. Support has not been removed yet. It does not have to be an “old” Slackware CD.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

Migrate now before you lose your data

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