It's true that RMS founded GNU and was the key leader for decades, and is basically its mascot. To many, RMS and GNU are the same. One cannot overstate his impact on the ideals and values of GNU.

I disagree with the suggestion that the group of people under discussion — who aim to distance themselves from RMS — want to "reduce the GNU project to a mere formality".

I think it's the opposite: that those people want to embolden GNU and strengthen the bonds between the various GNU softwares to create a first-class operating system made of free software, the GNU way. They ended their association with Stallman but continued with GNU because they believe in its goals. One could even say they did it because they believe that GNU is important.

It's been a very long time since RMS was able to marshall a group of people to work toward that goal. The maintainers of Guix and the other signatories of the statement against Stallman's leadership are doing that very thing.

The proof is in the pudding: the latest Guix release had 201 contributors. I think that's a lot.

GNU is internally managed on a private mailing list. Guix and other GNU maintainers coming out against Stallman may have been surprising to those who aren't privy to that list, but for the rest of us, it has been a long time coming.

For a long time, key GNU projects have either effectively quit GNU or, with great effort, wrested authority away from RMS because what goes on "behind the scenes" in GNU is not good. The only change is that now they are doing it in public.