Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) [LWN.net]

Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired)

Posted Apr 29, 2008 0:51 UTC (Tue) by Alan_Hicks (subscriber, #20469)
In reply to: Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) by proski
Parent article: Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired)

I had no intention of posting, so I'll leave my personal feelings regarding his guilt or
innocence and whether I could have convicted him on circumstantial evidence or not alone.
With that said, I do not believe under any circumstances that he should be allowed to continue
to operate as a programmer by the County or State in which he will be imprisoned.  The man has
been convicted of murder and as such deserves punishment.  Allowing him to continue to act a
very normal life for himself as a programmer is not what prison is about.

On a side note, I applaud LWN's coverage of this case.  It has been brief, objective, reserved
judgment, and sensitive to the people most hurt throughout this bloody affair.

(Log in to post comments)

Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired)

Posted Apr 29, 2008 1:03 UTC (Tue) by jmspeex (subscriber, #51639) [Link]

That's one way of seeing things. The other way would be that in no way can you have a normal
life in prison even if you have a computer. Also, having prisoners contribute to society in
some way (not arguing about which way) is a good thing.

Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired)

Posted Apr 29, 2008 1:16 UTC (Tue) by joey (subscriber, #328) [Link]

This is getting a bit far afield, but this idea that programmers shouldn't be allowed to
program while in prison is one that utterly rubs me the wrong way.

History is full of people who wrote letters and essays and literature in prison. And were
allowed to use a pencil and paper and get it published. King's Letter From a Birmingham Jail
is the first one that comes to mind.

This writing from inside prison has been allowed to have sometimes large impacts on the world
outside. (It's also no doubt been used to continue criminal careers from "inside".) Similary,
prisoners are allowed to use phones (with various limitations). And yet, currently there's a
feeling that using a computer and the net is somehow a privledge that should be taken away
from the incarcerated. Especially if they're programmers.

Perhaps this is just another case of the legal/justice system lagging technology by the
customary 50 years. I hope so.

And if you think that being in prison while still being allowed to write (or program) is any
kind of "normal life", please think again.

Letters from prison

Posted Apr 29, 2008 2:13 UTC (Tue) by jreiser (subscriber, #11027) [Link]

History is full of people who wrote letters and essays and literature in prison.

Jawaharlal Nehru's letters to his daughter Indira Gandhi, Glimpses of World History (1936), are another example.

Letters from prison

Posted Apr 29, 2008 7:28 UTC (Tue) by patrick_g (subscriber, #44470) [Link]

Or André Weil work :

"Among his major accomplishments were the 1940 proof, while in prison, of the Riemann hypothesis for local zeta-functions, and his subsequent laying of proper foundations for algebraic geometry to support that result"

(From Wikipedia).

Writing in prison

Posted Apr 29, 2008 11:12 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

Or the greatest work in Spanish literature: Don Quijote de la Mancha.

Letters from prison

Posted Apr 29, 2008 15:14 UTC (Tue) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link]

History is full of people who wrote letters and essays and literature in prison

Case in point: several books in the New Testament were written from prison.

Letters from prison

Posted May 2, 2008 12:53 UTC (Fri) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link]

Yes, but so was Mein Kampf.