Sorry, but how don't see how the GPL forces anything nor does it "infect" anything. That kind of loaded terminology is just BS.
The GPL offers you a deal that you can accept or refuse, just like any other license. The terms are definitively more onerous than permissive OSS licenses, but that's it.
An infection implies invasion. Until GPL'ed code starts copying itself to your projects, it's not an infection.
As RMS himself said:
The GPL's domain does not spread by proximity or contact, only by deliberate
inclusion of GPL-covered code in your program. It spreads like a spider plant,
not like a virus.
it's generally accepted that the GPL has a viral nature
It's generally accepted after the smear campaign by GPL haters, just like the "General Public Virus" expression and the "cancer" remarks by Ballmer. It's still a pejorative and, in my opinion, defamatory term.
A willful infection is still an infection. Whereby an invsasion is always unwanted. You can't willfully invade your own code, but you can willfully infect it - whether that be with other code, or licenses.
To be clear, I really wanted to point out that it can easily be perceived the way I described. I wasn't really trying to say that it's actually so. Honestly, I'm not a big fan of the GPL myself so it probably came out that way but the bigger point wasn't about my personal preferences but just how the GPL lends itself easily to that kind of thinking.
The GPL offers you a deal that you can accept or refuse, just like any other license. The terms are definitively more onerous than permissive OSS licenses, but that's it.