

All packages published to the arch linux repository are free software that can be built from source and have permissive licenses. Non-free software such as nvidia drivers and other things are distributed separately through the AUR, and aren’t managed by the Arch Linux team.
I would consider the collection of software provided to be no different than any other OS with optional packages. There are several forks of Arch Linux like EndeavourOS that have more complete defaults.





A permissive license is a specific category of open source license. As I said, all official repository software is free and open source. If the terms of the license did not allow it to be freely distributed or was a revocable license, it would not be allowed in the arch repository.