Is all the software included in somtav manjaro open source, if I choose open source drivers when installing the system? do I need to worry in this case that some part of the operating system might be non-free? If I don’t choose proprietary drivers, will they stay on disk or will they be deleted later? Or do they not download at all in this case?
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The choice upon starting the live system with “proprietary” or “open source” drivers is purely about whether you want to boot with NVIDIA drivers (proprietary) or not.
You can see the licenses of the installed applications in /usr/share/licenses.
is it a terminal command or what to do with it? anyway thanks for the info
You mean the licenses?
They are licenses … text files.
The path provided is the path to directories of software licenses.
For example …
Here I use the terminal utility cat to print the license for nnn:
$ cat /usr/share/licenses/nnn/LICENSE
BSD 2-Clause License
Copyright (c) 2014-2016, Lazaros Koromilas <lostd@2f30.org>
Copyright (c) 2014-2016, Dimitris Papastamos <sin@2f30.org>
Copyright (c) 2016-2023, Arun Prakash Jana <engineerarun@gmail.com>
All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
* Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this
list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS"
AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR
SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER
CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY,
OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE
OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
No. Even if you chose the open source option that’s only for graphics driver. There are still binary blobs in the kernel for wifi and other things.
If you want a distro that is Arch based and fully open-source then you probably will be interested in Parabola GNU/Linux-libre
There are only a handful of distro’s that are fully open-source.
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Hi and welcome to the Forum 
Your topic title actually applies to ALL Linux variants.
The real question is: Why are you concerned with the used software being OpenSource or not?
If you are concerned due to fear of needing to pay some license fee(s) to use any Linux variant, then don’t be afraid they are all FREE to use.
Software being OpenSource or not is just related to being able to change the source code and/or claiming copyright rights for it, and for companies being able to charge the end-user for using said software.
ALL software that runs on any Linux variant uses OpenSource parts in one way or the other even those that are not.
Some OpenSource parts even forbid commercial usage, eg. being used in software you need to pay for.
(fe. nVidia’s drivers are proprietary but they are not allowed to ask for payments for usage due to parts they themself necessarily use inside their source code…)
So unless you’re a software developer who wants to create something and sell it for profits, you should not be concerned about OpenSource as an end-user at all…
The answer to that is no.
Manjaro contains proprietary software most notably Nvidia.
If you want a fully libre system based on Arch you should Parabola.
oh, a whole developer answered me! Thank you. it will be even in the case of specifying open drivers during the initial setup?
i know linux is still free to use but i just don’t want to get possible backdoors
Thanks for information
No matter how you ask - the answer is still no.
The only thing the opensource vs. proprietary seletion is about, is which gpu drivers to use.
If you select opensource - then opensource it is - and the Nvidia driver is not installed.
But there is still proprietary software in the repos.
A lot of software is free to use - but with closed source - Google Chrome, Vivaldi, Opera, HP, Steam, CrossOver, VMware and FreeOffice just to name a few.
There is no backdoors in Manjaro.
What you do after the initial setup - is entirely up to you.
Backdoors as they are normally understood
The above statement should be understood in that sentiment
Well, that you know of, right?
Any binary blob could contain a backdoor. (Also any open source software, for that matter, does anyone actually read and understand the full source code of all running software? Look at the massive codebase of Firefox.)
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