I've been using manjaro for a couple of years and I really like it. especially the wide variety of packages available. Recently been using yay to find/install.

I prefer to run FLOSS packages when they are available. But I do not find a convenient way to preferentially seek these out. Even to know what licenses apply without individually researching each specific package.

It does not seem to be possible to search, filter or sort based on license in the web interface for packagegs or AUR. I do not find anything about it in man pacman(8) or man yay(8).

The only way I have found to find license info from the terminal is using expac. You can use %L to display the license. I guess you could combine this in a search to filter, similar to some of the examples listed on pacman/Tips and tricks - ArchWiki. But I haven't quite got it to work.

This seems like something other people would want but I don't find any available solution for it. Am I missing something? Or is it something with the arch-based distros?

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[–] EddyBot@feddit.de 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

People who deeply care about this typically use a distro which has a strong stance on FLOSS software like Debian or Fedora
Arch Linux is more free on this as long as the user gets a more conveniant way to install everything (even proprietary software)

the Arch Linux way however is also reading every PKGBUILD (where the license is stated) before installing and if you need to have an easier way to search through licenses just programatically solve this yourself i.e. by using https://github.com/archlinux/aur and going through all branches with a script

[–] Evkob@lemmy.ca 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Seeing "Ubuntu" and "strong stance on Free, Libre, Open-Source Software software" in the same sentence is confusing to say the least.

[–] EddyBot@feddit.de 3 points 9 months ago

sorry that was a blunder on my part, I wanted to say "Debian and Fedora" but autocorrect gotten a hold on me it seems

[–] linuxPIPEpower@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Don't you think that in the context of this thread, ubuntu is more FLOSS than arch?

This post is made wishing that someone will tell me I am missing something here. But if I'm not then it seems like we have to give the point to ubuntu no? because you have a much better chance of obtaining a FLOSS system if you can at least have a way to select what you are installing.

Would be interesting if there was a script that could audit the licenses being used by all the installed applications. Then generate a report. I wonder what the arch-based community is rocking with. I guess they also have logs of what people download though not sure how centralized/available that info is.

[–] Evkob@lemmy.ca 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Would be interesting if there was a script that could audit the licenses being used by all the installed applications

This thread is hurting my brain, but if I understand correctly maybe absolutely-proprietary is the kind of thing you're looking for? It checks your installed packages against a list of proprietary packages and suggests libre alternatives if they exist.

[–] linuxPIPEpower@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

ah wonderful!

Your GNU/Linux is infected with 87 proprietary packages out of 5290 total installed.
Your Stallman Freedom Index is 98.36

boooooooooo!!!

Somehow my wifi drivers have become non-free? I am pretty certain I selected the free variant during install. Though come to think of it I wasn't clear how assertive that option was. I do think there are free drivers for this.. hmm.

As FYI for anyone reading this,you need to use -f to get a complete list. It only shows me about a dozen even though it says there 87! The information is carefully hidden.

This thread is hurting my brain

i live like this all the time. :/ wouldn't wish it on anyone else. sorry to inflict my cognition on you but I appreciate your time :D

[–] Evkob@lemmy.ca 2 points 9 months ago

Oh don't apologize! It's nothing to do with you, I'm just dumb lol

[–] linuxPIPEpower@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 9 months ago

I find it surprising that this data, which as you say is available is impossible to display except by going on one by one investigations. It is too time-consuming to be reasonably accomplished. Especially when you consider going up the dependency chain. I am hoping someone can point me to a reasonable way to go about it. If none exists I do feel like its just not a priority for the whole community. I couldn't even find anything about this by scouring the usually-helpful arch wiki. I don't find any gists or other scripts, no forum posts, nothing .

I have not been much of a distro-hopper, just using ubuntu/debian and now manjaro for years. Maybe I will switch. I strongly prefer the pacman situation to apt. I never looked into any of the other options though so maybe there is something suitable.

[–] danielquinn@lemmy.ca 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I would love for a feature like this to be built into pacman or yay. Like, if it was included in the output of pacman -Ss <package>, you could decide which thing to install based on this info.

[–] linuxPIPEpower@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 9 months ago

Yes it would be good to filter, or sort. Have a little icon or color code licenses according to configuration. I'm always annoyed when I discover I accidentally installed some proprietary application. I would always select FLOSS if something is available. And it usually is.

From what I've found, expac would probably be involved in in displaying this information; I couldn't find any more direct way.

I did actually try to write this but I got stuck with my rudimentary skills. (user name is aspirational lol)