[rlpb]

This kind of hand-wringing is what the naysayers were doing with GPL software in the 90s. That the GPL would never fly in business because lawyers would get hung up in "what if" interpretations that were never the intent or spirit of the GPL in the first place.

It turned out alright.

[p_l]

Not really. GPLv2 had more sensible legal language, even if that turned out to burn FSF intentions at times, but over time lawyers started digging in more into "derivative software" clause. Also a lot of the naysayers were fueled by RMS himself doing whack a mole by forcing projects to adopt GPL in not nice manner (and I'm not talking about them using something big or critical from GPL project).

TL;DR FSF is heavily responsible for the "GPL is viral" message sticking.