I wouldn’t call the GPL “evil”, but I do think it’s more unrealistic given current western economics and mooching practices. Some copyright here and there does help keep food and water on the table.
While I'm a strong Free Software proponent, I'm not a zealot and insist on a black or white approach.
Yes, some software can be closed source, I agree, but it shouldn't be the bedrock software, i.e. anything required to enable hardware (firmware, OS, and preferably the utilities).
For the record, I'm paying for a couple closed source software packages on Linux which provide very unique feature s. These are inSync and Pagico.
On top of that, you can always sell GPL software (remember, you shall ship the source with the product. opening it it to everyone is not a requirement). On top of it, you can sell support or special versions. curl has a special version for paying customers, and ccid driver developers sell ccid compliance testing.
So, there are always alternatives, and the reality has more shades of gray than two distinct colors.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
https://creativecommons.org/faq/#is-creative-commons-against...
Closed source is protected in other ways besides copyright. Trade secrets, confidentiality, NDA, proprietary ownership, obfuscation, and in the case of hardware, big globs of epoxy and other countermeasures to ensure nobody can get in and reverse-engineer it.