It's unfortunate that most posts against non-GPL-ed codes in this thread does not address the vendor's interest that they sound like it's coming from self-interested parties that makes use of flawed understanding of GPL\open source for their own benefit.

IMHO, you need to understand more about what's involved in producing the components in question (yes, hardware and software) to make good cases about/against them.

ps: no, I'm afraid "I understand that someone needs to make a buck" isn't sufficient to reflect your understanding of the matter. These companies are not charities that churns out hardware to support certain ideals, so let's just accept that reality and base the discussion around that.