There was a game from when I was a child and I'd love to play it again without having to go the abandonware route.

Is there any support for getting the game Below the Root added? I see that there is a request for it.

The game was published by Windham Classics a division of Spinnaker Software.
Spinnaker was acquired by The learning Company who was then acquired by Mattel.
It looks like Mattel sold the Learning Company to a company named The Gores Group.

But other information states that the official distributor for the learning company is now a company named
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Learning Technology

I am going to go out on a limb a bit and say I can’t see it coming here. It is a very old game (you can get c64 version of it), and whilst that doesn’t rule it out of course, I would say it’s unlikely that there would be enough interest to warrant it.

Maybe as a freebie...?
Who knows. Trying to get in touch with the devs is a major step.
The main issue is, sometimes, who holds the IP. Of course, I'm no expert, but that's very likely for oldies like abbayarra mentioned.

There have been quite a few suggestions on freebies though, none have ever come through. If there was a bundle, with other games from that dev then that might work. Am just thinking of time and effort involved in getting the ip and getting it working compared to what it would actually make being sold.

I found a good summary of the rights situation on Moby Games:

https://www.mobygames.com/company/learning-company

The Learning Company became a brand of Riverdeep Interactive Learning Limited, which owned all previous TLC and Brøderbund educational/edutainment franchises including Reader Rabbit, Carmen Sandiego, ClueFinders, and Oregon Trail.
The Learning Company became a brand of Houghton Mifflin Company (now Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) in 2006 when Riverdeep merged with that company.

If it's not viable as a game for sale, it's even less viable as a freebie. GOG would still have all the costs for hosting, support, legal & contracts, etc. without even what little it might make if it were sold.

Freebies only make sense as advertising to incentivize new customers to check out the store or to engage and retain the existing customer base. An obscure old title with little to no appeal for most customers would not fit the profile.

So it would need to be done with the entire library including such series as Carmen Sandiego and Oregon Trail.

Anyone know how to bring up the command menu on C64? In emulation.

The five Windham Classic games could be sold as a bundle - in theory.
But of the five games only three have DOS versions, so - the "Windham Classics Bundle" would be incomplete right from the start.
Also: whoever holds the rights to the five games, obviously either doesn't mind them all being freely available on the internet, or (even more probably) they aren't even aware that they have the rights to these games in their portfolio. That happens quite often.

A company goes bancrupt and its assets get sold in mixed lots, and then some other company buys one of these lots because it contains something of interest to it, and ends up getting stuff in addition, that it never really wanted, and which then gets buried in the company's file basement, never to be seen again.

And let's be honest: these games are 34 and 35 years old.
That makes them automatically a cheap bundle.
Or - the rightholders could decide to sell them for a little fortune - and the bundle would sit on the shelves like lead.
Look into any sale with Disney games, and you see what I mean.

On top of that: I dare say the group of potential buyers is very small right from the get go.
The paperwork alone (lawyers' fees are expensive!) would probably cost more money, than GOG and the rightholders could ever hope to bring in again by sales.

Yes.

But I disagree on the Akalabeth case and some other freebies here but you have a valid point on that. That's why Epic is somehow a little weird in this sense, since they give out several highly praised and very well known games. But I won't digress and albeit there are similarities that's not the point.
Personally (on top of my head) there's the Hugo Trilogy which is available as a purchase here and that's a title I see as a quality freebie that most could enjoy/could possibly gather interest in other titles. Glad I purchased this one, though, but otherwise a same level of quality free game would've been superb.

Below the Root was also based on novels published in the 1970s, so it's possible the author's estate would have to be involved with republishing the games. Licensed games tend to be tougher for GOG.

Good point!
Though, of all the games in the series, only "Below the Root" was published in the 1970s (1975 to be exact).

"The Swiss Family Robinson" was published in 1812,
"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" were published in 1865, respectively in 1871,
"Treasure Island" was published in 1883, and
"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was published in 1900.

So, these are all public domain by now.