If there is no open-source version of some piece of software, the BSD folks are better off than they would be if there was only a GPL version. In the absence of a GPL version, the newly-created liberally licensed version of the software is likely to get more contributors and users. In the presence of a GPL version, the BSD version has substantially lower chances of success given the same effort from the maintainers. If I am only willing to use liberally licensed components in my project, GPL software is actually worse than proprietary software.