My last CS letter went unanswered about a bug in Gorky 17 that GOG is totally ignoring.

Still, chances are better they answer if you send them a message. They aren't obliged to read all games' forums, so they may never notice this one.
(Also, I recommend sending them that Gorky-related messange again; they have a few people to answer messanges from a rather large number of senders, so they may eventually forget about one or two.)

I assume there's a good reason it wasn't removed from Ishar. I'm guessing that they did not have access to the game's source code, only the original product. Unfortunately, source code is often lost over the years. Without access to the source code, they'd basically have to "crack" the game themselves, and that's a bit too much to expect, IMO.
Well, I disagree with this. First of all, it's GOG, not GODRMFG. So saying that "the entire premise of GOG is DRM Free gaming" is ... well, just wrong basically.
Second, this DRM does not prevent you from copying & installing the game as often as you want, which is a key issue here - and what sets GOG apart from most other services like it.
I agree that it's far from ideal to have a game with such a DRM-system. But again, I think it's better to have it here with that system in place, than not have it here at all. I think it would be very sad if GOG decided not to sell games with this kind of DRM (provided they have no way of removing it), as there are a good few classics that use it and I really want some those games to be released on GOG.
So, to conclude, I think GOG should inform us about DRM-systems such as this, but still sell the games. Then people like you can avoid them, and people like me can buy them.

Hello,
I have just come across this now and I do not find anything wrong with it.
However, I think it would be helpful if GOG could list which games still have their ancient copy protection in. There are a few that have had their CP circumvented (Waxworks which I own, too) and this is one that hasn't.. Therefore it's a little confusing for me to have to dig out whether I need to actually input the correct answer.
I don't find this intrusive DRM because Ishar doesn't install crap on your comp or effect the gameplay in any way.
I'm not angered by it in any way, I just think it would be helpful.

You think that today, if somebody would like to make a copy of this game, he couldn't do
this because of few words from manual?
And he couldn't write those it in txt an zip it with the game?
In a place where I live it's not what we call drm .
Cheel out people - i rather think it's cool “oldshool” feature then issue for us gamer's.
I also play it and didn't find it annoying, I think that's just the way old game was made.

I personally find such an old school system annoying. I believe the old Pool of Radiance did something similar and I went with the the first time, then I uninstalled the game but decided to give it another go later and I forgot I needed the wheel (which I had stashed away) so when the prompt came up I just stopped playing the game. I even bought Powermonger brand new a couple years ago and it asked for something similar, although I did not know it at the time and that game logs you out if you don't enter in the proper codes (something to do with land in the manual), so I just uninstalled the game and moved on to something more user friendly.
I mean I don't see the point in defending something so annoying, Eye of the Beholder had no such thing (that I recal) and if GOG.com has removed such a system before then they should here to. I've played plently of older games like this and I don't think it at all adds to the experience. It was annoying then it is annoying now.

bolded for relevance.
it's also worthy of note, that The Incredible Machine also has copy protection still in place,but does not require any specific icons, just anything will do.

Ehh... if it is still there (not come across it myself, yet and don't even remember it from way back) it would nice if it were removed and it ought to be pretty easy to do so even from binary, for certain values of 'easy'. I'm pretty sure I could do it with a hex editor, some time and a my knowledge of 8086 family assembly code, but at this price? Can you really complain that they haven't ploughed hours into removing a pretty trivial barrier to play which presents no barrier to anything else, copying and redistribution included?

This is stupid to get so upset over. These manual things (and other items as well) were part of the experience back in the day, and I'm honestly sort of glad that they left them in. I realize feelies were a form of copy protection, but GoG leaving feelies in a game is hardly the crazy SecuROM DRM slippery slope you're making it out to be. If anything, it makes the experience more complete, because it's part of the core game, not some stupid activation limit.
The goal of GoG is to provide you with classic old games. In all of these games, there is nothing remotely similar to modern DRM. There is extremely archaic copy protection in a few, but it's so insignificant and - in a way - classic, that your arguments are downright stupid. There's nothing preventing you from installing the game on multiple computers, and you don't have to bind it to a computer or account in order to play. You simply have to put in a word from a manual.
OH NO!

Actually EOB made you enter a word from a certain page and line in the manual upon leaving the first level. A kind of Demo of the game if you will for those who did not buy it.
That was the only time in the game. I personally do not mind this as I have the manual and couldn't care less about a few seconds of my time.

3. You buy it, you keep it.
Don't let your DRMs turn into nightmares (clever, no?). You won't find any intrusive copy protection in our games; we hate draconian DRM schemes just as much as you do, so at GOG.com you don't just buy the game, you actually own it. Once you download a game, you can install it on any PC and re-download it whenever you want, as many times as you need, and you can play it without an internet connection.
I guess you are caught up on the copy protection part of this statement. It is very obvious from the context they are not talking about hard coded in game words from manuals; but the every increasing control that publishers are trying to take from us gamers. You buy it you own it is what I get from this.

It is a bit of a shame. I was playing Ishar for 3-4 hours last night.. I was really starting to get into it, and the CP popped up. I had dealt with it one or two times already but this time it said "wrong word", i double checked and typed again; wrong again. I believe it was the third time and the game shut down. Since Ishar really discourages saving (with the 1000 g cost) I hadn't saved for quite some time.

It really annoyed me. I don't doubt that I HAD typed in the wrong word, but I triplechecked it. It'll be a while before i jump back into this game.