Lisp Machines started at Xerox and MIT. The MIT project was started in the mid 70s. Much of the funding for Lisp at MIT came from DARPA (aka ARPA) in the context of enabling technology for modern software for the military. The MIT AI Lab projects in general were largely funded by DARPA. For some information about the later funding see this book: Strategic Computing, DARPA and the Quest for Machine Intelligence, 1983-1993 http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&...
When the research created the first usable prototypes of hardware (the Lisp Machines and other stuff) and software (expert systems, ...) DARPA wanted to commercialize it to create a market which then could serve their needs. So licenses of the Lisp Machine design were sold to LMI, Symbolics and later TI. DARPA financed also the users. Many machines were funded to be bought by university projects. Much of the early Lisp Machines were sold to the SDI project (strategic defense initiative, a pet child of Ronald Reagan in the cold war, the space deployed missile defense system).
Stallman's role in that scenario is relatively tiny. He worked on software and when some of the stuff he was using was about to be commercialized (in the above context), he protested against it. DARPA's mission was not to develop free Lisp software, but to develop battle management systems, logistics software, diagnosis software for complex military equipment, assistents/trainers for fighter pilots, missile guidance software, ...
Stallman fought for free software, but he was working in a government funded lab, where the funders (DARPA) had a very different mission. The 'hacker spirit' at the lab was more of an accident, attracting creative people to develop the next generation of software and hardware. For the military and other government agencies, with commercial spin offs.
Stallman developed a lot of GNU software, but the goal of a new Lisp environment was given up early. For the initial goals see the GNU manifesto: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html
Funny side note: In the AI Lab, the names of the Symbolics machines started as dead rock stars. (Sinatra too, I think.) After they ran out of those, dead movie stars were used for names. RR was not too popular in those parts (he was president at the time), so he was one of the machine names too.
It was all fun and games until some D/ARPA reviewers walked through the machine room and put it together.
When the research created the first usable prototypes of hardware (the Lisp Machines and other stuff) and software (expert systems, ...) DARPA wanted to commercialize it to create a market which then could serve their needs. So licenses of the Lisp Machine design were sold to LMI, Symbolics and later TI. DARPA financed also the users. Many machines were funded to be bought by university projects. Much of the early Lisp Machines were sold to the SDI project (strategic defense initiative, a pet child of Ronald Reagan in the cold war, the space deployed missile defense system).
Stallman's role in that scenario is relatively tiny. He worked on software and when some of the stuff he was using was about to be commercialized (in the above context), he protested against it. DARPA's mission was not to develop free Lisp software, but to develop battle management systems, logistics software, diagnosis software for complex military equipment, assistents/trainers for fighter pilots, missile guidance software, ...
Stallman fought for free software, but he was working in a government funded lab, where the funders (DARPA) had a very different mission. The 'hacker spirit' at the lab was more of an accident, attracting creative people to develop the next generation of software and hardware. For the military and other government agencies, with commercial spin offs.
As mentioned the SDI initiative was using this technology. But there were several others. One of the biggest wins was DART, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Analysis_and_Replanning...
Stallman developed a lot of GNU software, but the goal of a new Lisp environment was given up early. For the initial goals see the GNU manifesto: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html