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Magmarock: You can extract the data using install. You don't need to manually hack your way through it.
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tremere110: What?! Dosbox itself cannot be password protected under any circumstances. It is a violation of their GPL. Any archived games with Dosbox as part of the install cannot have a password of any sort blocking access to Dosbox itself. Can anybody confirm that Dosbox games are affected before I shoot off an email to the Dosbox team?
They only got around to applying it to ~30 especially large games where the ability to incrementally update RAR files during installer development saved a lot of time. None of those were DOSBox based as far as I can remember.

The relevance to DOSBox before GOG backpedalled was that, to keep things simple, they like to use the same technology for everything, so it'd have eventually come to all games as new updates got rolled out.
Post edited January 10, 2015 by ssokolow
Speaking of DOSBox; many games delivered with it here on GOG do not come wth their install or setup executable anymore. This makes it a pain to select other sound devices/ cards which is a shame, especially for those with a real DOS retromachine, or real sound hardware, like my Roland MT-32 and Soundcanvas.
There is even a request open for this, which receives surprisingly few votes:

Include setup in DOS games
Please vote for this one if you think it is important and remember in your comments that the option to include it might not be available to GOG if the IP holder omitted it from the files supplied to GOG.
Post edited January 10, 2015 by jorlin
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tremere110: What?! Dosbox itself cannot be password protected under any circumstances. It is a violation of their GPL. Any archived games with Dosbox as part of the install cannot have a password of any sort blocking access to Dosbox itself. Can anybody confirm that Dosbox games are affected before I shoot off an email to the Dosbox team?
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Gersen: Actually no, the GPL doesn't prevent it at all, at least not GPL v2. (for v3 it's a little more tricky)

You could have somebody take Dosbos source code load it with always online DRMs, include games encryption requiring a one time on-line unlock token to be run, or even streaming part the game content from an online server, and yet it would still be perfectly ok with the GPL as long as the person in question provide the source code of all his modifications.

The GPL doesn't forbid DRMs, encryption, restriction, whatever, it only says that you have to, if requested, provide the source code of the original program and of all the modifications you made to it.
Ah, I was looking at v3 and not v2. Well, if Dosbox is ever updated to v3 GoG might have problems. That specific paragraph about not password protecting would definitely be an issue.
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jorlin: Speaking of DOSBox; many games delivered with it here on GOG do not come wth their install or setup executable anymore.
While this is a shame, is it really that widespread? I don't recall having had issues with a missing setup where I have gone poking.

Also, the wishlist entry you linked to is a dupe and the other one has more votes.
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jorlin: Speaking of DOSBox; many games delivered with it here on GOG do not come wth their install or setup executable anymore.
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Rixasha: While this is a shame, is it really that widespread? I don't recall having had issues with a missing setup where I have gone poking.

Also, the wishlist entry you linked to is a dupe and the other one has more votes.
I've encountered it on several occasions, not sure which games anymore.
Thank you for reiterating that my previous link was a dupe.
I've corrected the link to point to the more relevant wish. Although I doubt if it will get much attention, since the wish description does not include "dosbox, only DOS in it's title. Fair enough, it is also applicable to other game engines, like ScummVM or AGS.
Post edited January 10, 2015 by jorlin
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Trilarion: They could legally continue encrypting the installers if they so like. Fortunately they do not. But they could.
Sure they could. No one has said otherwise. The could also legally slap DRM on all their games too. The point that is being made here is that password protecting the encrypted archive of the installer seems contrary to GOG's stance as a DRM free retailer.

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Trilarion: So install the game via GOG's installer for GOG's supported OS and then replace their DosBox with your DosBox. You don't need to access the installer in any other way than the intended one. Difficulties only come into play if you also use a Linux that is not supported.
Sure, I can do that. Or I can extract the data, and avoid unnecessarily running installers, and have total control over what data goes where. I prefer the latter.
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jorlin: Speaking of DOSBox; many games delivered with it here on GOG do not come wth their install or setup executable anymore. This makes it a pain to select other sound devices/ cards which is a shame, especially for those with a real DOS retromachine, or real sound hardware, like my Roland MT-32 and Soundcanvas.
if I recall correctly, when installing Master of Orion GOG even sets up an extra dosbox config for you to execute the SETSOUND.EXE.
If you found a game where you can't configure your soundcard, it sounds more like in oversight/mistake than some company policy.
It is probably worth it to dig out that game of yours and then contact support with this issue.
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GOG.com: GOG offers and supports games compatible with specific operating systems and prepared to be installed on a given system using our included installer for a reason.
Thank you GOG for making the right decision and removing password protection. I am a happy Linux user. About 10% of the games that I purchased here are supported by you on Linux. The other 90% are not (at the moment, and this number is unlikely to change fast), so I need to rely on Wine and other "unsupported tools" to extract and play them. For me the fact that I can do so is certainly the most critical factor in deciding whether to purchase games here. So while I understand your goal of providing hassle free installation on supported systems, I hope you also never forget the concerns of customers like me, who use manual ways of installation, even if unofficially. This is mostly applicable to games that run in dosbox, of course.
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king_mosiah: Sigh, that is all he/she ever does in Linux related threads, throw around vague criticisms about Linux and/or OpenGL without any elaboration.
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Magmarock: I've only been on two Linux threads, and I have a low tolerance for BS. So many Linux fanatics are full of it.
In the Linux world, if you have a problem - go help fix it. Empty complaints won't help anyone.
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hummer010: This has a lot to do with dosbox. Or any other emulator / compatibility layer. It has nothing to do with Linux. If I want to use my own version of dosbox instead of the one included by gog, I need to extract the data from the .exe.
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Magmarock: You can extract the data using install. You don't need to manually hack your way through it.
Yeah, your idea was to use a Windows VM for it. So much easier than one liner command with innoextract. Reality check?
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Gersen: The GPL doesn't forbid DRMs, encryption, restriction, whatever, it only says that you have to, if requested, provide the source code of the original program and of all the modifications you made to it.
According to GPL authors, GPLv3 clarified intentions of GPLv2. So according to them GPLv2 also forbids DRM. But since it wasn't clearly enough explained, they had to make another revision.
Post edited January 11, 2015 by shmerl
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Magmarock: I've only been on two Linux threads, and I have a low tolerance for BS. So many Linux fanatics are full of it.
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king_mosiah: You also seem to have a low tolerance for ever being anything but vague it seems.
What details would you like to know.
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shmerl: In the Linux world, if you have a problem - go help fix it. Empty complaints won't help anyone.
In the real world people don't work for free. Are you seriously suggesting that I lean programming and fix all the problems with Linux free of charge.

Do you really expect people to switch to Linux that an attitude like that. I've said it and I'll say it again. My constructive criticism of Linux is A. It's hard to install packages and dependencies offline B. poor compatibility nothing works on it. C. it's too barebones lacking essential apps that you need such as a decent partitioning tool. D. to much of it needs to be operated from Terminal and no ones wants to use a console to get their PC working since Windows 3.1

How about these issues get fixed first, and then we can worry about other pointless stuff. It is absolutely ridiculous to go around telling people to switch to an OS with these many issues and expecting them to partake in fixing them. People want to enjoy their computers with very little getting in the way, not waste hours upon hours trying to figure out how to do what they've already been able to do in Windows for the past twenty years.

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shmerl: Yeah, your idea was to use a Windows VM for it. So much easier than one liner command with innoextract. Reality check?
That was simply a suggestion and if it's password protected then yes it is easier I should know because I've just done it.
I couldn't believe hoe easy Virtualbox was I had better luck running games through it then I did through wine and this is on a 4 gig system lol.

Besides you can use Wine to get the exe's to install as well. The games might not work but you'll have the data.
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shmerl: In the Linux world, if you have a problem - go help fix it. Empty complaints won't help anyone.
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Magmarock: In the real world people don't work for free.
Tell it to those who volunteer for multiple projects. And if it's your problem, it's not for free. You gain the fix you worked for. If you care though - quit complaining. Instead of complaints file bugs and work on fixing them if you can. If you don't care then quit complaining either way, since there isn't any point.
Post edited January 11, 2015 by shmerl
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Magmarock: Do you really expect people to switch to Linux that an attitude like that.
The attitude is simple. If you don't file bugs - don't complain. You use something for free, and expect others to make it useful for you. Yet you don't care to file bugs if something is broken. Speaking of the attitude.

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Magmarock: How about these issues get fixed first, and then we can worry about other pointless stuff.
File bugs if you want anything to be fixed. No one can read your mind about what you consider in need of fixing. Even better - work on fixing it yourself. If you can't, then at least report the issue so those who can would know about it.
Post edited January 11, 2015 by shmerl
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Magmarock: In the real world people don't work for free. Are you seriously suggesting that I lean programming and fix all the problems with Linux free of charge.
In the open source world, lot's of people work for free. Huge parts of Linux have been created by people working for free.


A. It's hard to install packages and dependencies offline
No more difficult than windows. If you haven't already downloaded everything you need, you won't be able to install it offline, regardless of OS
B. poor compatibility nothing works on it.
I'm not even sure what you mean here. There are ~20,000+ packages available to ubuntu that generally all work. I'm not a Ubuntu user, but I'd suspect that most distributions have similar numbers of packages.
C. it's too barebones lacking essential apps that you need such as a decent partitioning tool
Gparted for partitioning. It's free, and better than pretty much every windows partitioning tool. I have yet to find software that doesn't have a Linux equivalant. It might not be exactly the same, but there really is an equivalent to pretty much everything. And it's generally free.
D. to much of it needs to be operated from Terminal and no ones wants to use a console to get their PC working since Windows 3.1
I find the less I touch the mouse, the more productive I am. For some tasks, there is nothing better than the terminal. Most distributions tend to have GUI tools for just about everything now if that's your preference though. Your generalization about no one wanting to use a terminal is a pretty sweeping generalization, and it's dead wrong. There are lots of people who want to use a terminal. I'm on a windows box at work, and I spend lots of time at a command prompt.
How about these issues get fixed first, and then we can worry about other pointless stuff. It is absolutely ridiculous to go around telling people to switch to an OS with these many issues and expecting them to partake in fixing them. People want to enjoy their computers with very little getting in the way, not waste hours upon hours trying to figure out how to do what they've already been able to do in Windows for the past twenty years.
I've never once told people to switch OS's. If you're happy in windows, I'd rather you didn't switch. That way I won't have to hear all the ridiculous complaints about Linux. Linux definitely isn't for everyone.
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king_mosiah: You also seem to have a low tolerance for ever being anything but vague it seems.
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Magmarock: What details would you like to know.
Oh, I dunno, how about you start with OpenGL. You say you "Use" it, what do you mean by that? Have you ever programed for OGL/GLSL or did you just play Minecraft and assume it looks that way because of OGL?