But large companies use quite a bit of GPL software. I'm checked my phone, my PVR, my car media system and proprietary GPS I have and all of them have an open source license document that includes some GPL code.
For a hardware company, the GPL just isn't that much of a competitive disadvantage, since most of the software is written to work with their hardware.
Please convince Nvidia of that. Their closed source drivers are a major hindrance in the Linux community. They keep them closed because they feel the driver source would reveal additional details about their hardware, giving up some of their advantage over competitors.
For a hardware company, the GPL just isn't that much of a competitive disadvantage, since most of the software is written to work with their hardware.