The future of Namesys, the company behind the ReiserFS filesystem, looks bleak to some, even to the people working at it. After the recent arrest of Hans Reiser, spirits have been down over at Namesys. While the company still plans to continue working on the very popular filesystem, they admit that should these events turn sour for Hans that it will have a deep impact on the company:
"I do not think that just being arrested will affect anything so long as Hans is not actually convicted," says Oleg Drokin, the former release manager at Namesys. "If he is convicted, that might cause problems for Namesys [because] it is operated solely by Hans."
Moreover, given that Reiser has made its way into the kernel and the goals the company has set forth, they don't believe that development will be brought to halt, and will continue on as normal, though obviously it will be more difficult. Should Hans never return to the company, other people have stated that development will continue in the long term with Reiser5, and ultimately even third parties may pick it up.