They created a useless debate as FUD. There is no real debate about e.g. GPL vitality any more than MS stack virality. There is no real debate about Linux copyright or patent legitimacy.
Merit or not, the debate made going to work a lot more fun. Being a rebel against the empire gave me purpose, causing me to marshall my career into a series of deliberate steps instead of slipping into the complacency of just being a "day coder".