New member

[thudson@cygnus.com]

I joined this list after the announcement on linuxtoday.
I was a father of two until Saturday night, when my wife
gave birth to our third child, a beautiful baby girl.

I am very much interested in software for children. I
have a three year old daughter and almost two year old 
son, both are already computer users. We have my wife's
iMac, a win98 machine that no one in the family seems
to like, and of course, a couple of linux boxes.

My family has accounts on my linux file server (even though
they're not aware of it), as it serves my linux dev machine,
the iMac via atalk, and the win98 machine via samba.

I've watched my children learn to use the computer, and seen
the effectiveness of programs like Reader Rabbit. I think
that some elements of the current state of GUIs are not
well suited to new users and children. Things like
double-clicks, etc. I've often thought of a complete
desktop environment geared more towards children.

I've been in the software industry for almost twenty
years, with experience ranging from designing and
writing CAD systems, commercial development products, 
and music apps. I'm also a musician, and contribute 
to open source projects developing better multimedia 
capabilities for linux.

I dream of a complete framework and desktop for educational 
apps, that would take advantage of the multiuser capabilities
of linux, such that each child's account would record their
progress for review by the parent or teacher. Also the advantage
of being X windows based means that cheap obsolete hardware
could be used as X terminals, saving more powerful hardware
for central file/application servers.

I look forward to contributing to these goals.

Thomas
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