Pretty much. You can google around and find pretty good tutorials on how to remove older copy-protection schemes.
As for who cares? People looking for an excuse to complain and bash. Everyone freaked out when Ubi used a crack to remove DRM from one of their games because everyone wanted to bash Ubi. That site is freaking out because it gives them an excuse to bash GoG.
Personally, I don't care enough either way. The Scene crackers are pretty much the experts on removing DRM, so they know the best way. So either GoG used the same method, or they just used the crack. Either way, the customers benefit without any penalization of the publishers. So win-win.

Codex regulars don't see a distinction between old and new "free" games; they will download any game they think is sure to be garbage (by Codex standards, any game released since about 2001 is automatically garbage, with the possible exception of turn-based, isometric RPGs). They tend to allude to their pirating ways along the lines of "I didn't remove it from the inventory".
What makes this even more amusing and saddening is that they purport to be the last bastion of true RPG design, but any modern developer passing by will see that they are a bunch of selfish, greedy pirates who won't even pay for games they love when a developer actually takes the time to make them available again; if they treat their much-loved old games that way, why bother making new games that satisfy this sort of audience?

Man, those were the days.

I cant believe anyone would want to bash GOG. I know it's not perfect but...it's so nice...
If you can hate GOG you can hate anything so yeah..I'm with Crassmaster...

The Codex just don't like paying for games. WHY WOULD YOU PAY FOR DRM FREE GAMES WITH EXTRAS FOR A LOW PRICE DAMMIT

Money is overrated.

They seem to take personal offence to GOG because they take old games, update them for Vista then TEH HORRAR they want money for them. Those guys seem to think that once a game has passed into abandonware it should remain so and GOG simply exists to deny them of their Freh. Abandonware =/= Freh. Freeware = Freh.

And afterward, they wonder why they get DRM with their games.
Seriously, these guys are just a bunch of losers. When you take the time to complain about something as trivial and nitpicky, you clearly have too much time on your hands.

Not to mention the fact that abandonware is not legal in the slightest.

No an IP is always owned by someone even if they have forgotten about it. What abandonware sites do for gaming in general is preserve these games because in many cases the original developer or publisher for whatever reason may not actually have the games anymore. Responsible abandonware sites though will remove files as soon as a game becomes available for sale again, the ones that don't... well thats piracy.
People forget that just because these sites are not being prosecuted it doesn't mean it's legal.

Yeah, I'm not justifying it, but I have been known to emulate old games. I don't have or want consoles so no legal avenue for me there, but if there was one on PC I would be all about it. Would be cool if CDP/GOG expanded in a few years and had a site set up for that too. Course it probably won't happen as everyone's got a console now and first parties are probably content...
Way off topic now. :)

I guess they thought GOG should break out Borland Turbo C++ 3.0, the (likely non-existent) source code, MS DOS 4, and recompile it? Whatever.

Doesn't the US, like some other countries, have a law that basically states that criminals cannot profit from their crimes? If so, the publisher simply needs to prove that their "cracking" of files is a crime, and thus they don't have to give the crackers anything.

The legal doctrine that would probably be most applicable is that of unclean hands.

I don't know about laws elsewhere, but where I am in Canada, no game is considered abandonware until 50 YEARS after the author dies, I don't think there are any games that fit that description, lawl.