You're right that this isn't new, but at some point the camel's back breaks and the idea that it's so implausible that what he said happened to, y'know, really upset people when they read it and that they'd had enough--well, it's a pretty cheap charge on your part.
I didn't know that GNOME has had issues with Stallman before, though I do believe it now and can certainly imagine it; I learned a few new, bad things about his behavior that I didn't know prior to today. Still, my point is - if they wanted to get rid of him for a list of valid reasons, they could've done it earlier, or they could've waited for the current storm to blow over and do it then. They picked this moment, and unless I'm grossly misunderstanding the timeline, they must've known it'll get carried by the media. So for better or worse, out of all possible opportunities, they picked the one where RMS is a subject of borderline-libelous and utterly nonsense shitstorm. Sure, people got upset when the news broke, but that's the thing with Internet witch hunts - people get upset over lies, and react without thinking, further fueling the avalanche.
While it was known to not be isolated beforehand, it's pretty clear to me that a number of people have felt safe to tell their own stories in the couple days since this broke. I live near MIT but did not attend, and so I am not in any particularly privileged circles; despite that, this incident prompted a lot of people to speak up about RMS's consistent bad personal behavior as well as his bad public behavior. These sorts of things have a way of providing courage to people who have felt suppressed--someone is brave enough to kick one rock and dozens more come with. I would submit that if a nobody like me is hearing that stuff it is a near-certainty that people with hire-and-fire authority at MIT, and in decision-making roles at the FSF and GNOME, are hearing it and likely more.
This is what makes most of the protestations in this thread (not, I stress, the ones that you're laying out) so disheartening. On one hand you've got people adjusting their pince-nez and going "well, really, don't we need to have a conversation about statutory rape?" (we don't), while you've got another contingent who are all about clapping for pedophiles to "own the libs". It's just...really gross, and it's not about "free thinking" or "free speech" at all. (And it never really is.)
I might be biased otherwise (RMS lost a lot in my eyes due to new information I learned in this thread), and my initial introduction was the Medium post that started the media storm, but reading RMS's writing, I saw him explicitly not absolving Minsky from wrongdoing, but getting pedantic about the language, in an attempt to ensure the accusations being flung around are as close to what (he believed) could be made with available information. I immediately thought, "man, this is about the worst time to be pedantic, people will eat you for this alive", but honestly, trying to make the accusations wielded against a deceased friend accurate is laudable.
Much like I'm disgusted by some of the things I've learned today, I still feel that the original Medium post and the latter media reporting based on it are essentially character assassination performed to push a cause and (in the case of the media reporting) push ads. That's why I called it utterly nonsense.
I agree that things come in waves once you open the floodgates; RMS being criticized for one instance of bad behavior gives a reason to air other (perhaps less known) stories from the past. From my point of view, given that I consider this particular outrage over this particular misbehavior grossly overblown and based on mischaracterization, I'm just disappointed the camel broke its back immediately, legitimizing the current outrage. Even if getting rid of him for all the past transgressions, I would feel much better if they waited a few days.
