Torvalds talks about his brand new blog

In your third post you describe and share (naturally) an Internet usage tracker that's helping you maintain limits with your children. How has that been received in the Torvalds household?

Oh, the kids have been on that thing pretty much since they got the computer, it just got rewritten recently (and I decided I don't want to lose it to another disk crash). It's the least onerous of the rules we have for them ("no identifying information" and "homework first" being among the more obvious of the others).

I didn't do the tracker because they couldn't keep off, I did it because this way there doesn't need to be any whining about it on any side. We don't have to try to track it and say "OK, that's enough," and they don't have to ask for permission.

So everybody's happy - it's some clear rules, and the way it's done it doesn't really limit them from using the computer for productive things (i.e. they can write their essays, etc., on their own with no limits).

(Update: Mere hours after our exchange, it looks as though Torvalds is going to venture into political commentary, too. Brave man. As someone who knows a thing or two about mixing political developments into a technology blog, I can tell him that it's something that not every reader will appreciate. But good for him. It's important.)

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