Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm trying to understand the actual harm you think would come to free software if in fact there were no copyright, hence no GPL.
The reason that large successful projects like Linux are so capable is not because it has a price tag of zero (and it often does not), but because of the feedback loop created by the viral-nature of the software license. The vast majority of Linux is not a volunteer project -- but software developed by commercial software engineers who are being paid by a company to write software. Before copyleft, the idea that they…
It's much easier to upstream your desired changes than maintain a separate fork (closed or otherwise) long-term. Additionally, many of the contributors have been using it for own servers, not required to contribute back.
Things like NVidia and other closed drivers show you can bolt a non-open part to the GPL code if you try enough.
> And without copyleft, Linux would have been a hobby OS that died out in the early 90s. We'd be using things like Windows Server, Unix, etc.
This ignores the entire existence of FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD.
> they'd have heavy DRM schemes, obfuscation, cryptographic licensing
This ignores the existence of heavy DRM schemes, obfuscation, kernel-level anticheat spyware, criminalisation of copyright-circumvention schemes, etc.
At this point, I think you're just trolling, so I'll stop here.