keynote speaker, PyCon Reminder: Early bird reg deadline 2/1

[Terry Reedy]

"John Benson" <jsbenson at bensonsystems.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.541.1074598380.12720.python-list at python.org...
> My curiosity has been greatly piqued to see that
>
> "DC 2004 will be held March 24-26, 2004 in Washington, D.C.  The keynote
> speaker is Mitch Kapor of the Open Source Applications Foundation
> (http://www.osafoundation.org/). "
>
> Isn't Kapor the Lotus guy that tried to quash Borlands Quattro Pro
because
> it offered an alternative Lotus-user-friendly menuing structure? (see
> http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Copyright/copyright.html)
>
> And who also claimed that "it is my heartfelt belief that many of the
> increasing number of recently issued software patents, concerning, for
> instance, fundamental techniques and artifacts of user interfaces, should
> never have been granted in the first place because of their failure to
> qualify as either novel or non-obvious. Some patents appear to preempt
> automation of common functions such as footnoting. This to me is like
> allowing a patent on the round steering wheel."
> (http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/tek1/software_patent_kapor.htm)
>
> I'm experiencing some severe cognitive dissonance here. Can anybody help?

I am pretty sure the second item (statement) came several years after the
first.  Sometimes people learn from experience and mistakes.  I have.

tjr