How is the GPL cancer? Regarding your own software if you don't like the mix of rights and responsibilities it provides don't use it. Your dislike hardly means it isn't a good fit for others.
Regarding others software it gives you the right to use their software with no cost providing you are equally free with the fruits of your own labor. Obviously you might not agree with this but what I don't understand is why you have such a caustic attitude.
What people commonly seem to believe is that the gpl magically sticks other software because you included gpl code. What actually happens is that you can't legally take other peoples code without following the license. Try this with proprietary software sometime. You will be sued to extinction. If one of your employees includes gpl code in your product you will likely be respectfully asked to either gpl the other code or remove the gpl code and be given ample time to do either.
You are 100% able to replace the code you never had a right to and move on the gpl doesn't and can't magically adhere to your code thus calling it "cancer" is silly.
Calling it cancer is probably going too far. I think a more apt analogy is that it's a virus. A very contagious one.
Whether you agree with what that virus is propagating or not is a separate discussion.
My personal experience working in this industry for 30 years is that the GPL (and even some of its derivatives) has been pretty much universally banned in every single company I've worked at or know of.
Cancer has no such intention. Like any other organism, it competes for resources with those around it, and survives if it is effective enough at that to do so. Given that it often best characterized by the genetic mutations it has developed relative to the host (thus, it may differ from you genetically significantly more than an identical twin), I believe it is entirely fair to call it a separate organism. An 'extremely effective cancer' (as terrible as this sounds), would survive without regard to the state of the host, as Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumor Disease, which is contagious (transmissible by bite), emerged from a single original host, and has been around for quite a while.
Regarding others software it gives you the right to use their software with no cost providing you are equally free with the fruits of your own labor. Obviously you might not agree with this but what I don't understand is why you have such a caustic attitude.
What people commonly seem to believe is that the gpl magically sticks other software because you included gpl code. What actually happens is that you can't legally take other peoples code without following the license. Try this with proprietary software sometime. You will be sued to extinction. If one of your employees includes gpl code in your product you will likely be respectfully asked to either gpl the other code or remove the gpl code and be given ample time to do either.
You are 100% able to replace the code you never had a right to and move on the gpl doesn't and can't magically adhere to your code thus calling it "cancer" is silly.