The silver lining in all of this is that we are watching Free Software work in real time. I happen to be in the “fuck this guy” side of the discussion for a variety of reasons, but you’ll notice that nobody on either side has expressed any anxiety about losing access to the work, what the future might hold for the GPL, etc.
A trite thought experiment: imagine that Elon Musk or some other industrialist were embroiled in such a controversy. You can bet your ass there would be Elon-stans out here reminding us that if he goes down so goes Tesla, SpaceX, etc. and that this would net bad for society. The conclusion is dubious, but some of you have probably heard similar arguments.
In this case we get to observe one of the great features of FOSS: dissolving a cult of personality never has to threaten the overall health of the ecosystem. Basically everything good the man ever did is GPL’ed and in the public domain. Forever. By his own design, RMS has no real power over anybody beyond their admiration of his legacy.
missingno wrote
There's one good take on all this I read on the bad site that I'll share here: