No it does not. The license only applies to other people. As the copyright holder the choice of license does not bind you in anyway; this is why it is possible to release something under multiple licenses (say GPL & BSD), provided that you fully own the copyright. The GPL does bind the behavior of others, but only to assure reciprocity. It assures that corporations cannot freeload off your efforts without contributing back.

"Avoid it where you can" is the wrong attitude. You do need to be cognizant of the issues around the license, though, and, for a commercial entity in particular, avoid it where it will infect something you don't want infected.

I love Linux and am fine with using it and its GPL'd code on my servers, but if I needed to extend an OS as a product (eg if I wanted to create the next OS X), I'd look at BSD long before Linux.

The public domain is tricky however. Not everywhere can you legally put a work into the "public domain". Creative Commons even has a separate license (CC0, http://creativecommons.org/about/cc0) to basically just waive all rights to a work "to the fullest extent allowed by law".

Public Domain is not recognized in Slovak law and in many European countries. You cannot abandon your right as the author.