In the list of nucleus developers, Linux published letters obtained by one of the developers during correspondence with Hans Rezer (Hans Reiser), in 2008, sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his wife as a result of a quarrel with a subsequent attempt to conceal crimes (in 2025, Hans will be able to file a petition for parole).
In the published letters, Hans expresses remorse for his mistakes when interacting with a community of developers. He discusses the transfer of Reiserfs V3 into the category of outdated Linux 6.6, analyzes the history of Reiserfs development, mentions the hopes associated with the promotion of Reiserfs V4, and explains the technical solutions implemented in Reiserfs V4.
Commenting on the decision to remove Reiserfs from the nucleus, Hans mentions that the question of whether this FS is useful and whether it should continue to be supplied in the nucleus should be decided by users and take into account the current realities. He understands that the presence of Reiserfs code in the nucleus creates an additional load on accompanying due to the need to test and ensure compatibility with new capabilities that appear in the nucleus. If the Federal Antimonopoly Service is no longer relevant, he believes it makes no sense to continue its supply as part of the nucleus. He also highlights that when developing Reiserfs 4, many shortcomings of Reiserfs 3 were taken into account and support was simplified, but this version was accepted into the nucleus.
According to Hans, his only request is to add a readme file before the removal of Reiserfs from the nucleus. He emphasizes the importance of mentioning Mikhail Gilulu, Konstantin Shvachko, and Anatoly Pinchuk, whose contributions to the development have remained undeservedly lost.