It did later come out that Tom Lord wrote it, but not as a prank; he was working with RMS to build Guile, and this was the opening salvo in trying to build the

It did later come out that Tom Lord wrote it, but not as a prank; he was working with RMS to build Guile, and this was the opening salvo in trying to build the case for it. RMS did post it under his own name.