Indeed. I remember hearing about his predations years ago; they were well-known then just as they are today. Nasty business like propositioning the female custodial staff at MIT when he lived in his office; being sleazy to women at conferences: as you say, he's been a bad actor for a long time.

I think that what got him was this era in which this latest kerfuffle emerged into the public eye. People have finally had enough and are (rightfully) demanding action against those who repeatedly behave poorly. Women in particular are tired of being treated badly in CS and technology in general and are pushing back (to which I personally say, "good. How can I help?"). Hiding behind a thin guise of faux "rationality" or rhetoric or appeals to pseudo-scientific "questions" or just being socially awkward is no longer a shield for being a harasser or predator. The myth of the quirky intellectual who delights in irreverent behavior as a foil to established norms in order to break free to some higher level of thought have been exposed as the shams they mostly are. These people aren't geniuses, they're just jerks.

Stallman's position as the revered patron saint of Free Software has been crumbling for some time; this outburst in the current environment was the straw that broke the MIT camel's back.

        - Dan C.

PS: Semi-related story: during the aftermath of the 2013 Boston marathon bombing, and in particular after the ambush-style murder of MIT police officer Sean Collier, much of the greater Boston area was under lockdown while combined police forces tracked down the bombers. Collier was killed in his patrol car an intersection about a block from the Stata Center, which houses CSAIL and Stallman's office. Stallman was known for propping the doors to Stata open as he's somehow morally opposed to the RFID key cards usually used for accessing MIT buildings (apparently he doesn't like being "tracked"). During this time I'm told he raised something of a stink because people were closing the doors: nevermind that armed killers who'd already murdered a cop were running around the neighborhood. It's a great example of letting the perfect (some abstract notion of "freedom") be the enemy of the good (not getting killed because someone motivated to launch a terrorist attack and actually murder people was running around outside). The man is unreasonable and I'm not at all sorry to see him go. Like Larry, I've got kids: I'm happy they'll grow up in a post-RMS world.