Hans Reiser

Hans Reiser is famous for two things. One is his contributions to free software. The other is the murder of his wife Nina Reiser for which he was convicted in 2008. It is for this that he will be most remembered. This hub has more about Hans Reiser.

Hans Reiser was born on December 19th, 1963. Growing up in California he dropped out of his junior high school before he was 14, citing disagreements with the conventional schooling system. He attended University of California, Berkeley at the age of 15 where he received a BA in Systematizing. Reiser was also one of the founding members of the Open Computing Facility at UC Berkeley. Though preferring higher education, Reiser chose not to pursue a Ph.D., citing the same reasons he had dropped out of junior high school. He was therefore unable to pursue a further career in academia and worked part to full time in the computer field while founding and building the California-based international software company Namesys Inc. Prior to founding Namesys, Reiser held positions at Synopsys, IBM Research, Premos and ARDC.

In 1999, while working in Russia, Hans Reiser met and married Nina Sharanova, a Russian-born and trained obstetrician and gynecologist who was studying to become an American licensed OB/GYN. They had two children, Rory and Niorlene.

The Reisers separated in May 2004. Nina Reiser filed for divorce three months later, citing irreconcilable differences and saying that their children "hardly know their father" because he was out of the country on business for most of the year, according to court records, and was granted sole legal custody of the children and shared physical custody of them with her husband. The divorce was never finalized. Nina Reiser obtained a temporary restraining order against Hans in December 2004 after he allegedly pushed her, at the height of the divorce proceedings. She dropped the temporary restraining order in late 2005 because the heat of the divorce had chilled over time. In exchange, Hans Reiser agreed to be bound by a one year civil restraining order which prohibited him from "contacting, harassing or disturbing the peace" of Nina Reiser at her home or place of work and ordered him to stay at least 100 yards away from her. In May, Nina Reiser alleged in court filings that her husband had failed to pay 50 percent medical expenses and childcare expenses as ordered by a judge.