GOG already has some indie games. Alien Shooter series for example.

True, but I am not to blame when they contradict themselves. ;)

Feel the need to point out the good news that Dear Esther is now available DRM-free on Desura (since late April) and on the developer's own site using the Humble Store (since who knows how long ago).

http://dear-esther.com/?page_id=789
http://www.desura.com/games/dear-esther

EDIT: I guess this should end any debate as to whether Valve allows source games to be sold outside of Steam.

So the open letter from the OP worked fine. :)))

That's entirely possible. I'd say it's much more likely that they're just reasonable people and know that not everyone likes Steam. :P

I'm almost sure we'll see this very soon on GOG.

This! I didn't buy it on Steam because of the drm... so if it comes here I will be very happy

I'm becoming an increasingly bigger fan of kickstarter. Not only does it work with indie games, many companies seems to be abandoning publishers in lieu of this service.

Its why I've backed two projects there. And both are fully backed and growing. Incidentally, both projects I'm backing promise to release the game DRM free (apart from STEAM) in the top paragraph of their kickstarter page. People have funded over 300k for each project and the game isn't even out of development yet. They are willing to pay a year in advance for these games.

If a dev wants to use STEAM, they should, but at this point in time, I think everyone is well aware that there is a growing community that won't use that product. Its risk assessment. If you think you can't make money by working from multiple distribution channels, than you have to do what you think is best. In my personal opinion, there are better options than going platform exclusive. Obviously, others will disagree. But its apparent that developers are aware that DRM is a problem for some. It really is in their court to decide if they want to do anything about it or not... and that is why I like kickstart. 9 times out of 10 its the publisher that insists on DRM... and with Kickstart, the dev gets to call the shots which are directly influenced on a daily basis by the community throwing money at each of their decisions.

It seem that the minority of people who do care about DRM also form a large part of the Kickstarter crowd. That and Linux fans. So companies will go that way to get more backing. And of course most of them don't believe in DRM in the first place.

Me, I like Steam, but I appreciate a DRM free copy too. DRM free plus Steam is for me a good combination, and fortunately it's becoming more common.