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rsync has a very restrictive licence.

As a user-facing program it literally doesn't matter, it's only a political issue. You install it and you use it. The problem is if you're scared of the presence of GPLv3 for no reason.

It means that for example Mac OS or Windows will not bundle it by default.

Because they are scared of the presence of GPLv3 for no reason. Still a good point. Mac OS also doesn't ship modern GCC or Bash, so they are pretty much at war with reality at this point - or rather - creating their own ecosystem.

every other unix system besides linux used to be like that. for many sysadmins the first action on a new unix server or workstation was to install gnu tools.

apple decided to include those tools by default possibly in order to attract users. then they decided to stop updating and now macos is no better than those other unix systems used to be.

i used a mac for a few years and i don't miss the experience. gnu/linux just works

I think that problem is with macOS & Windows, not with rsync. There is no real reason why either cannot bundle it; they just choose not to.

There is openrsync if you don't like the rsync license.

https://www.openrsync.org/

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