Sean Reiser

Recently, Rahsheen and I subscribed to each other on friendfeed after months of popping up in the same threads. To bust my chops a little he posted this: 'Am I the only one that sees "Reiser" and thinks Filesystem', which devolved into a conversation about my name, Hans Reiser, filesystems and the Nina Reiser situtation. In this thread I asked "... if a developer is arrested for a non-hacking crime, isn't working on open source software the 21st century equivalent of making license plates?".

At first blush this might look like an odd question but work with me here. As you may know Hans has been sentenced to 15 years to life for murdering his wife, a heinous act that I'm not justifying or defending in any way. But, now that he's in jail what happens? I don't know if California uses prisoners to clean highways, make license plates, and other "hard labor" as some states do, in some sense, writing code donated to the community seems to be an equivalent, if one has the skills.

This isn't about Hans, it's about the waste of talent sitting inside prisons. There are free medical clinics across the country in need of volunteers and Medical Professionals in prison for white collar crimes. Could some sort of program be setup to allow these folks to volunteer their time? The same could be said for Lawyers in prison doing research for cases for the Public Defender's office or pro bono cases. If pressed I could think of examples in many fields where I could see convicts doing more for the community then sitting in cells 24/7.

I'm not suggesting using prisoners for paying jobs at for profit companies. I don't see Microsoft firing all their programmers and backing up the truck at San Quentin every morning. There would have to be vetting to make sure that this wouldn't happen.

To me prison isn't just about punishment it's also about rehabilitation. I feel that people should come out of prison in a better shape to serve society then they went in. Perhaps using their skills for the community instead of for profit will give them a new perspective on life. If we allow prisoners to earn high school and college degrees, shouldn't we allow them to use the skills they have to benefit the world at large?

I realize that not all prisoners would qualify for a program like this. Perhaps, due to the violent nature of Hans's crime, he would not be eligible, but this isn't about him. There would have to be mental screening to make sure that participants in a program like this aren't likely to abuse it or commit violent acts while in less secure conditions.

Of course proper steps would have to be taken. If a prisoner was given access to a computer internet access would have to be limited and tools like wireshark, and a key logger would have to be used to prevent him from doing something underhanded. If he is required to have contact with citizens (for example patients) appropriate supervision would have to be required.

You may be thinking that this is a better life then a prisoner deserves. But, at the end of the day they would still be deprived of their liberty, not seeing their family, friends and loved ones. They are still sleeping in a cell without privacy or dignity. I don't think any of us are signing up for that life anytime soon.

Disclaimer: As far as I know I am not related to Hans Reiser. The most contact I've had with him was years ago on a Reiser Surname mailing list that's floating around in web.