A few questions here:

1) Do the users not currently have a choice today? (e.g. do we need to populate the @nonfree license set?)

2) Are the users aware of the choice? I suspect this feels closer to your intent. While its perhaps technically possible to make an informed decisions on licensing we do not force users to make a choice, and so many accept the default.

3) Some Gentoo community members find the existing default problematic because it does includes nonfree software, and think Gentoo should ship with only free software by default.

I think if there isn't a @free-only (or -@nonfree) item we should do the work to make that possible (so ensure 1 is implemented.)

I think if we wanted to inform users about choices[0], we could set the default to "-*" and give users a set of choices with descriptions about each. This would require users to make an informed licensing choice by default; because the lack of a choice would prevent an install. It would do what you wrote though, and raise awareness about licensing in Gentoo (and OSS in general.)

I personally am against making the default @free-only (or FSF or OSI approved, or whatever moniker you want to assign) but I'm obviously one of many and I'm sure there are developers who support this idea (see more below.)

-A

 

[0] I assert that users have a choice today (because they can change the variable) and if we made it default to @free-software users would still have a choice, and the awareness benefit is actually quite limited. I don't think having a default 'enables choice' at all, it just pushes a different ideology (whatever ideology is the default, because most users accept and use that.) Pushing an ideology is fine, but I would rather be up front about such things, vs trying to write a narrative that somehow making the default be "@free-software" somehow gives users more choices; because assuming the license group exists today, we are not adding choices at all. I think a @free default fits right into the Gentoo Social Contract and while I oppose it on a personal basis (because I think the result harms users) I do support it on an organizational basis.