I've had a bunch of interaction with John over the years, mostly around 'SpeakFreely', which he generously allowed us to use for the audio component of the webcam software.

It took a while before I had mentally linked the 'Autodesk' founder to the person I was interacting with and I think he had a quiet chuckle or two when I finally found out. What is so interesting to me is that instead of clinging to power at Autodesk he managed to let go of it and enjoy his (way too short) time afterwards.

We never met, unfortunately.

I believe he dedicated Speak Freely to the public domain so that anyone can use it for anything. Even more generous than you imply.