Hans Reiser, the author of the eponymous Linux filesystem, has been arrested on suspicion of murdering his wife, who went missing more than a month ago. More sordid background details here. Meanwhile, the Slashdot peanut gallery has been busy; in between impassioned debates on the death penalty, sincere hopes that this does not disrupt a fine project (now that would be a tragedy!) and discussions on whether ReiserFS will be renamed if he is found guilty, there have been a lot of off-colour jokes:
What's the difference between O.J. and Hans Reiser?
Hans kept a journal.
If the transaction doesn't commit, you must acquit!
Not to mention the following observations:
This isn't meant to be funny or insensitive ... but if he did do it and is found guilty it seems like he'll have a bunch of time on his hand. You know, with the long jail sentence and all. Is their a reason why he can't continue working on this project from jail? Also, working on a OSS with your free time in jail seems like it might get you some good behavior points.
Glad to see someone's got their priorities straight...

Posted by: substitute | http://substitute.livejournal.com/ | Wed Oct 11 16:34:38 2006

That weird geek reflex to make the geek part of everything primary surfaces here. On a Livejournal thread about I saw something like "I suppose someone who is really effective in one area isn't in some others" as though being charged for murder and being the author of a useful piece of software were somehow roughly equivalent. Such a strange world geeks inhabit.

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