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That's the problem with GPL v3. With V2, you could link to GPL'd code, or use GPL'd libraries, in your closed source project and that was OK. If you made changes to the GPL'd code, you needed to make the source for the changes available to anyone who you distributed the software to.

With v3 however, if you use GPL'd code or libraries in your closed source project, you have to make the ENTIRE PROJECT available under the GPLv3 as well. This is the viral nature of it.

From http://choosealicense.com/lice...
Permissions of this strong copyleft license are conditioned on making available complete source code of licensed works and modifications, which include larger works using a licensed work, under the same license. Copyright and license notices must be preserved. Contributors provide an express grant of patent rights.

Github has a page attempting to hit the bullet points of obligations - http://choosealicense.com/lice...

Helping developers answer this question is the primary goal of https://choosealicense.com/ which itself is Open Source under the MIT license: https://github.com/github/choo...

It can be, but it's discouraged;
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Can_I_apply_a_Creative_Commons_license_to_software.3F

There's plenty of free software licenses, libre and otherwise, open source and otherwise, you can choose from that have little to nothing to do with GNU (not sure if you're just referring to GPL there, or..)

Github suggests using this site, but there's other comparative / flowchart-based ones if you google about:
http://choosealicense.com/