Bullying an old man with cancer over off-colored jokes made half a century ago and opinions that he publicly retracted is "the right thing"? That's absurd.
Stallman's credit for the creation of the GNU operating system was stolen by Linus Torvalds, and most of the community even claims that GNU isn't an operating system, essentially deleting his biggest achievement and denying him any and all recognition.
He created and championed Free Software, but that movement was replaced by the Open Source ideology, which is diametrically opposed to what he believed in. The FSF struggles to get new members and funding, while the Linux Foundation and open source projects flourish with billions of dollars from volunteers and corporations alike.
GCC and Emacs are largely irrelevant today. Stallman himself gets no respect; he's mocked and harassed by open source advocates and corporations alike.
He has expressed the isolation he is in during an interview: "I am the last survivor of a dead culture. And I don’t really belong in the world anymore. And in some ways, I feel like I ought to be dead."
What Drew DeVault did with this hit piece is despicable. He wanted to shame and bully the FSF board into removing Stallman and resigning so his people can take over and push for his deranged idea of 'free software.'
"Influential" doesn't mean "in control." See: the media deciding the definition of "hacker" over years of protests from people in the tech community.
Stallman, his writing, and his org moved the needle on the way software was done; that doesn't imply they get to dictate how software is done. But nowadays, I question their capacity to move the needle.
Sometimes one does the right thing not because the world will love you, but because it is the right thing.