Novell Shift Following Murder Investigation

Month Date, 2006: Novell has announced a shift from the default filesystem ReiserFS in its SuSE Enterprise Linux in the same week its author is arrested under suspicion of murder.

Novell has announced a shift from the default filesystem ReiserFS in its SuSE Enterprise Linux in the same week its author is arrested under suspicion of murder.

In a move Novell says it has been considering well before Hans Reiser’s arrest, the default filesystem will now change to ext3. The shift will align the programme with rival, Red Hat.

The ResiserFS author has been arrested in California on suspicion of murdering his estranged wife, Nina Resiser. While police have found no body in the case, the arrest is said to have been based on circumstantial evidence.

“In response to customer demand, in the next version Novell will be changing the default file system in new instalments from ReiserFS 3 to ext3,” Novell said in a recent statement. “Novell will continue to support and improve ReisreFS version 3.”

The future of Reiser’s company Namesys looks uncertain following the arrest, though employees say they plan to continue working on the project.

Resiser has originally been pushing the move towards Resiser4, the fourth version of his software.

ReiserFS is a journaled file system for Linux programmes. The latest edition from Namesys, Reiser4, is said to offer security updates and fix potential critical bugs.

Novell has supported the ReiserFS file system for over five years. However the company has recently identified a number of technical problems with the Namesys offering claiming that developer Hans Reiser opposed extensive changes to the software.

ReiserFS will to being a secondary but still supported option.

Comment on this story.