Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The San Francisco Chronicle by way of Getty Pictures
When Apple was about to introduce Time Machine in Mac OS X Leopard, John Siracusa wrote in the summertime of 2006 about how a new file system should be coming to Macs (which it did, 11 years later). The Mac, Siracusa wrote, wanted one thing that might effectively deal with numerous tiny information, quantity administration with pooled storage, checksum-based knowledge integrity, and snapshots. It wanted one thing like ZFS or, maybe, ReiserFS, file methods “notable for his or her willingness to rethink previous assumptions about file system design.”
Two months later, the identify Reiser would lose most of its status and decide up a tragic affiliation it might by no means shake. Police arrested the file system’s namesake, Hans Reiser, and charged him with murder in reference to the disappearance of his estranged spouse.
Reiser’s work on Linux file methods was basically sentenced to obscurity from that time on. Now that designation has been made official, because the file system that was as soon as the default on methods like SUSE Linux has been modified from “Supported” to “Out of date” in the latest Linux 6.6 kernel merge process (as reported by Phoronix). Whereas a former worker of Reiser’s firm, Namesys, continues out-of-source work on later variations of ReiserFS, it’s prone to disappear from the kernel totally in a matter of years, likely 2025.
It is an ignoble finish for a filesystem that, at one time, may have been the subsequent massive factor for Linux file methods.
Hans and Nina Reiser had been within the midst of divorce proceedings when Nina disappeared in September 2006, having been final seen dropping her children off at Hans’ residence. The 2 had clashed repeatedly over youngster help, and Nina had a protecting order in opposition to Hans by then. Throughout their investigation, police discovered Hans’ Honda CRX miles from his residence. The within was waterlogged, the passenger seat eliminated, and police found a sleeping bag cowl with a 6-inch stain of Nina’s blood, together with two books on police homicide investigations.
Reiser was convicted by a jury after a trial during which he supplied “bizarre courtroom behavior and convoluted arguments,” and a “geek defense,” over 11 days. He was later sentenced to a relatively lenient 15 years to life after leading officials to his wife’s body following his conviction however earlier than sentencing.
Earlier than his arrest, Reiser’s self-named file system was positioned to have an actual affect on the way forward for open supply file methods. ReiserFS addressed ext2’s lack of journaling, added B-tree indexing, and labored a lot quicker when coping with big numbers of small information. Others had praised the system’s stability underneath energy or system failure, in a position to get better and restore knowledge quicker than different methods on the time. ReiserFS “garnered a lot reward and even main trade help,” wrote Jeremy Reimer in a history of file systems from 2008, however “the wheels began to return off for causes that had been primarily non-technical.”
Reiser abruptly dropped help for ReiserFS, focusing as an alternative on Reiser4, which required a reformat for anyone who wished to improve. There have been “questions concerning the reliability and stability of Reiser4,” Reimer famous, however Reiser’s arrest on a grisly homicide cost had extra affect. When ext3 added journaling help, its standing as a recognized, dependable amount made it the subsequent default, “regardless of valiant makes an attempt to ascertain ReiserFS as a brand new normal.” By July 2008, Ars’ “postmortem analysis” of the ReiserFS mailing list confirmed little curiosity amongst builders in sustaining its code. Final yr, Jeff Mahoney, maintainer of the ReiserFS challenge upstream for OpenSUSE, proposed its immediate removal.
Reiser was final seen in courtroom in 2012, this time appearing as his personal lawyer in protection of a wrongful dying swimsuit introduced by his then-pre-teen youngsters. Reiser argued that he had prevented hurt to his youngsters by killing their mom, however a jury discovered him liable for $60 million in damages. Any “hidden belongings” or “something of worth he may develop whereas behind bars” can be obligated to the youngsters.
Reiser, now 59, has been eligible for parole since January 2019. He’s imprisoned on the California Well being Care Facility in Stockton. Reiser was denied parole in March 2020 and can subsequent have a suitability listening to in August 2027, based on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Former Namesys developer Edward Shishkin continues to work on Reiser5 (i.e., ReiserFS 5) and is regularly covered by the Phoronix blog. Ars reached out to Shishkin for remark and can replace this put up with new data.
