Oof. To me that joke is definitely in poor taste.

As a general rule, I find that just because someone has been around for a long time or has a large body of work to show for their career does not make them a nice or pleasant person; it also doesn’t make them always right. I am not going to comment on rms specifically but how many assholes do we have running things and continue letting them be assholes just because they’ve also produced something worthwhile?