Right. Because I have an account there, I forget that you don't need one.

Excluding (the backup feature which is half baked as it is and not really in use and) the games with explicit DRM, and maybe some minor registery* tweaks, is this NOT the case? I assume Steam does not force you to "call home" every now and then on every game in your library, and even for those it does, presumably this could be done on your main computer every now and then to make sure the backup version works as well.
For all that I know, the only maneuver I had to pull to make any such backup work on a Steam Offline Version was moving the system date back to the time I made that backup, hardly a nuisance for those that don't care about Steam tracking features anyway.

The major problems with Steam's DRM highly revolves the store-front itself : Unless you use tricks,
- Most games require you to start an additional resource hogging software
- You are not allowed to even launch a game without forcing you to update (at least the client which gets updated quite often)
- Those with activation limits that don't advertise about it prior to installing might stop working at some point due to hardware/software change
- The Steam servers must be accessed to run the game and sometimes crucial to major aspects like saves - no server no game
- For those that use Family sharing, one can get locked out of access even if all above is working but a friend is playing one of your other games.
And all of this is forced on the user, while offering questionable benefits like keeping the game uptodate or having a leader board. This is making the trustworthy costumer - that only wishes to play nice without any tricks - get a worse product then the cheater, thus neglecting the whole point of being a trustworthy costumer in the first place...

* While one might say this could make the process far more complex, keep in mind most DRM-Free software installations also needs some keys added to the registery, so for the most part it's not like you can just move the folder and it works.

No, if you copy/move your Steam folder you will need to restart Steam in online mode at least once for the games to works. Same thing with backups, they are totally useless if you don't restart Steam in online mode to reactivate you games. And concerning the offline mode, even when it works fine, if you do some majors changes on your hardware (e.g. if you try to move your HD to another computer) it will disable itself and forces you to reconnect.

Actually yes it works, I have yet to find a game that is not 10+ years old that has any problem with that. The only time where you might have some issue is if you try to install some patch (as they often use the registry to locate where the game was originally installed) but apart from that the huge majority of DRM-free games will work just fine if you copy the folder somewhere else.

You know a smart person should know that calling people stupid is a pretty shitty thing to do.
This probably won't mean anything to you but in the UK I call this the Jeremy Kyle generation.

But even in the non-mainstream hipster GOG circles there is no clear definition of what DRM actaully means. Remember that whole "rar passwords" installer situation?

Hmm, Interesting, so you say that even in offline mode Steam still checks its folder when starting a game? I assumed if you make Steam "think" (including some registery tweaks and some file edits) everything is in order and have it set to work offline prior to moving it wouldn't ask for online access.
So you say much has changed in the last 10 years and software no longer seeks these registery keys? I had no idea so much has gone portable (which is actualy quite logical in comparison to the Mac Os / Debian route of portable "imaged" libraries).

However, the delivery method isn't part of the software. So for the statement "the software is DRM-free" to be true, it doesn't matter at all how the delivery method works (at least, that's what I would argue).

Except resale is a legal right. A one-use, non-transferable, account linked key (like what's used by GOG) is by definition a DRM-that is something that "manages" my legal rights.

I can assume you prefer Humble, then, where binding to an account is optional?

I'd say free rather than open source. Some open source files are not free to own, and in fact you have to tie them to your email account. On the other hand, there are many free games or programs with no DRM. Once you download it, anonymously if you choose, it's yours.
But you don't actually own the software. You own a license to that software. You don't have rights to redistribute the software technically. You call it a right, it's definitely one of those gray areas that everyone hates because both sides can argue till they're blue in the face and make NO progress because there isn't a true right answer.

True, but the license can -- at least for most software distributed on disc -- be transferred to another person, most download-based distribution platforms make this very difficult if it's at all possible.

And here's the thing, because GOG doesn't have a client yet and forces you to download installers, it really isn't the "lazy" way; Steam or any other client based service just require you to press download and then press play.

I have noticed that some people are utterly convinced that the client is the same thing as DRM. I can understand the confusion if someone has only used Steam and has only ever known the client is required and launches with the game.

It's very satisfying though when you explain DRM free and direct them to GOG, especially when they can't quite believe it and are happy to discover there is a different way.

I am one of those people who do not care about DRM that hasn't annoyed me at all. Steamwork's DRM, doesn't bother me at all, I don't worry about it and don't care about it. When it comes to buying decisions, DRM is not on my list of considerations. I bought Witcher 3 on GoG, but it being DRM free isn't even on the list on the reasons why. me buying games on GoG have zero to do with it being DRM Free.

If GoG or Steam ever goes out of business, I know I will lose my games on those services, I understand that risk. If I wanted to have physical backup for myself to store I would just buy the games physically, and i am not going to pay money to store backups on Hard drives or on a cloud service.

With that being said, when ever i do talk about GoG with people, I always mention it being DRM Free, cause I know that is important to some people.

I only really care because of where I live. I simply can't have to depend on being on line to play.