With no source code to review,
Stallman filled in the software gaps according to his
own tastes and enlisted members of the AI Lab to
provide a continuous stream of bug reports. He also
made sure LMI programmers had direct access to the
changes. "I was going to punish Symbolics if it was the
last thing I did," Stallman says.
Such statements are revealing. Not only do they shed
light on Stallman's nonpacifist nature, they also
reflect the intense level of emotion triggered by the
conflict. According to another Newquist-related story,
Stallman became so irate at one point that he issued an
email threatening to "wrap myself in dynamite and walk
into Symbolics' offices."Ibid. Newquist, who says this anecdote was confirmed
by
several Symbolics executives, writes, "The message
caused a brief flurry of excitement and speculation on
the part of Symbolics' employees, but ultimately, no
one took Stallman's outburst that seriously."
Although Stallman would deny any memory of the email
and still describes its existence as a "vicious rumor,"
he acknowledges that such thoughts did enter his head.
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