Thanks Jean for your reply.
Non-free packages should definitely be checked with their privacy policy. But what about free packages?
(Note: it also has a patent file with some restrictions which can make the package non-free perhaps, would give more details if required)
Free networking applications like browsers, p2p applications etc would definitely require internet but other free apps also connect with the internet automatically when starting for the first time (Eg: aseprite, libreoffice) or when checking for updates. One can know this via an application-based firewall.
Free packages are available via main repositories (through terminal apt commands or a package manager) and also via
other ways like websites, terminal commands like wget, curl etc, offline archive files
etc.
Would you say that all free packages via main repositories and via other ways (after checking their license to be DFSG-compliant) can be safely be allowed to connect to the internet?
Thanks.