I had no problems installing DOSBox 0.74-3 under Linux and configuring games "from scratch". It's almost the same as Windows version, only file paths are a little bit different. I even made desktop shortcuts to run games directly. If you manage to run DOSBox Staging, you'll get an ultimate tool to run MS-DOS games.

Now about DOSBox and GOG games. You need to extract game data - install it under Windows and transfer files to Linux, or install a game using e.g. Lutris. Then analyze original ".conf" file (pay attention to [autoexec] part) and make your own config for Linux. Good luck!

P.S. I'm sharing my example DOSBox config as attached image ("Pulpit"="Desktop").

Next, you'll be saying I need a license to play Windows PC game in Wine.

Rofl!!

In purely legal terms, it's actually quite likely.
But what's certain is that a store would need a license to sell the game bundled with a Wine wrapper.

You laugh, but e.g. some of Microsoft's VS Code plugins state explicitly that you're only allowed to use the with their official VS Code distribution.

Publishers could write similar conditions into the game licenses, if they wanted to.
Can't think why they would do that. Probably wouldn't be enforceable anyway.
And I certainly wouldn't let it stop me from playing it with Wine myself.

The question of enforceability is interesting. I wonder if such a restrictive license might fall foul of things like competition laws, fair use, right-to-repair?

It seems similar to if a movie publisher sold a DVD movie under a license that it can only be played in Sony DVD players and not ones made by other manufacturers. It's hard to see that flying in court.

I suspect the restrictive license clause is more to cover the publisher for liability/support. If they say it's only for use with 'Microsoft Windows', then that absolves them of the need to provide any support for compatibility tools such as Wine. It doesn't mean they are going to go after you for using Wine.

And there would be absolutely no benefit to them of going after you. You've purchased the game - they're not suffering any financial damages due to someone playing it in Wine, rather than Windows.

Elephant in the room:

GOG providing the option of zipped(zip is just more common) original DOS game files, this really wouldnt be a problem for older dos games.

As for pulling the files out of the exe? I tried this yesterday. Depending on the game, it looks pretty messy. Fallout 1 didnt have the original files. It looked like it was wrapped in some prepackaged lump, meant specifically for windows. In short I couldnt use the files in any other dos program.

Anyone can take a look and show me different.

Isn't GOG's Fallout 1 the Windows version? It had both DOS and Windows versions, didn't it?

Probably the problem with that one. I was only casually looking, but I could swear I looked at Crusader no remorse and it was the same thing.

Ill check again this afternoon. But having archived clean files is still a better option. It doesnt piss off lawyers and every platform is covered.

As speaking of "software preservation" - in order to run the particular game you would have to deliver, as someone stated here, a whole "matching environment" (if I recall right that was said). This means, for each dos game you would have to provide a whole emulation system with dependencies.

Now imagine you/Gog would have to package a whole old windows 95 or some kind of Linux distribution/distro for this.

And even if the underlying environment is provided, there will still be needs for updates to those packaged operating system due to support of newer hardware and such. Or you run into some emulation software emulating the operating system to play ONE game.

I do not think that makes much sense.

As for the "elephant in the room":

Gog targeting Linux distros can do 3 major things:
1) Provide players with a guide how to unpack a zipped/gzipped game and setup Dosbox in some common distributions - leaving the "Ubuntu XYZ" version stuff at all for Dosbox games - because "in this case" it is not very relevant.
2) The installer (installer scripts) allowing to select "I want to use the bundled Dosbox" or "use the distro Dosbox installation" - maybe add automatic detection for Dosbox in "/usr/bin" for example.
3) If no Dosbox is detected, ask the user to provide a path to the Dosbox "binary" and (sym)link this, during installation into the game files.

And that's where DRM comes in.

If you create DRM which forces you to use only certain platforms or methods to play the game, anything that circumvents those restrictions can be seen as breaking digital protections which as such would be a fairly straightforward court case.

Practical questions remain of course, how would anyone know what you do in your home?
But there is a big difference between:
A) It worked with an emulator, so I played it with an emulator, I didn't know it wasn't allowed.
and
B) I broke the DRM and made it work with an emulator.


DVDs do have restrictions, but they are regional restrictions, not related to hardware manufacturers.
Theoretically a similar kind of solution could have been created to force certain discs work only with certain kind of DVD players. Obviously that didn't happen, but the basic idea behind DVD technology could be applied that way.

In some other context such an idea has been used, like file formats which only work with Apple hardware etc.

But that's a different case though, where a piece of media has a DRM lock built in that restricts it to being used with a certain system. That would require the DRM to be broken, in order to use it in a way that wasn't intended.

This thread is talking about a situation where the media doesn't have a built--in lock mechanism and the publisher is trying to restrict the user to using a certain system, purely via a clause in the game's EULA.

The legality of the two cases may differ. The first case (at least in theory) isn't relevant to GOG, whereas the second case is, which is the subject of this thread (as I understand it).