ESR

Welcome to my piece of the Web. I maintain quite a lot of open-source software, FAQs, and HTML documents, so this site is rather complex. It’s mostly validated HTML and light on the graphics, though. You won’t have to wait an eon for any of the pages to load.

If the software and FAQs I maintain are valuable to you (and especially if my software makes you money) please leave me a tip at Patreon or SubscribeStar.

Using this site

If you want to link to, copy, mirror, or translate portions of this site, please read my copying policy.

If the HTML or images on this site seem to be confusing your browser, see the site design notes.

Frequently-Asked Questions

If you’re with the press, or want me to give a talk, here are answers to the usual questions. You can see a list of my upcoming speaking engagements.

If you’re looking for the Halloween Documents, they’re here. Having studied the history of other advocacy organizations, I specifically designed OSI not to be a founder-centered cult of personality; I think OSI’s decision to move them off the OSI website was a mistake, but our community is healthier because they had the power to make that mistake.

It’s all about freedom…

You can fetch my GPG public key here. I support widespread use of strong cryptography for privacy, and encourage you to use GPG encryption with this key when sending me messages. If your mailer makes this difficult, consider switching to Mutt.

As a public service and act of civil disobedience, we are proud to offer the DeCSS code that will allow you to circumvent the encryption on the DVDs you own. Your DVD, your hardware, your choice! (Please do not ask me technical questions about this code; I have never used it.)

Also, here is the decryption key used for most HD-DVD movies:

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

I have never used this, either, I’m publishing it here because the MPAA is attempting to suppress public knowledge of it.

Finally, the HDCP master key. These magic bits defeat the HDCP scrambling that attempt to prevent you from viewing high-definition video on the hardware of your choice. (No, I’ve never used this either.)

I will not tolerate having general-purpose computing hardware, which should be an instrument of liberation and creativity, reduced to a locked-down delivery pipe for “content”. By trying to cripple my tools, the big-media machine has made me its enemy. DRM delenda est!

…and it’s all about me.

You can read all about my projects, past present and future, including the software and FAQs and Web resources I maintain.

I do consulting under the Thyrsus Enterprises service mark. You can surf to my resume from here, if you’re interested in my career or qualifications. I’m not in the market for a job just now, though, unless you can offer a project that really fascinates me.

You can read personal stuff about my life and politics and hobbies and friends. You may also find my writings of interest.