As long as GOG's licensing allows them to do that, which is the one thing that everyone seems to gloss over (even TET). From a purely technical standpoint, all the DOSBox and ScummVM games would be relatively easy to re-package, but that ease is meaningless if they are not allowed to do that in the first place.

No openSUSE version . :(

That is a really interesting question. How is a Linux license given? To "Linux as a whole" to different distros? Does GOG hold general licenses (including Mac)?

As GOG probably just acquired the distribution rights on the original licenses, which under which the game were originally released, it is pretty much open for legal interpretation if GOG can simply sell a linux version or if they need additional approval. (I'm pretty sure eg. there never was a Syndicate release for linux ... ).

Effectively, if using emulators, are you really selling a linux version? Or are you just selling the original Dos version made runable under Linux? Is that covered by the license agreement?

(And yes, that is the stuff I do for a living, although not with licenses and videogames sadly)

I may not like Steam, but I might bite on this depending on how it pans out. Its nice to see a company showing a little love for the penguin.

What I find very funny is that after all Gabe big theories on W8; out of all the Linux distro he end up choosing Ubuntu.

If there one distro that somewhat emulate most of the questionable decisions of Win8 that's definitely Ubuntu.

One thing Ubuntu has going for it is there are alot of distros based on it such as Mintu, Zorin OS, wattOS, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Puredyne, etc. Steam should work for those as well, although you may need to make a few tweaks. Then again you kind of have to be a on the adventurous side or know someone who is adventurous to be using linux ;)

My guess is that GOG simply is so small that anything than concentrating on the core market (PC, Windows, English) is not profitable enough. On the other hand Steam while being big shows a remarkable flexibility when it comes to reaching their customers, as they have shown with the Mac support or with various payment methods.

My advice would be for GOG to accelerate a bit, to take the high number of votes in the wishlist for Linux support serious and start offering Linux/Mac support for those games where it is easily possible soon. Waiting will do no good.

Yeah, very much this. Sure, guaranteeing 100% Linux compatibility across all distros for the entire catalogue is pretty much an impossible task, but who says they'd have to do that? Obstacles are supposed to be overcome one at a time, not all at once.

What's with you M$ fanboys? Ubuntu has been a trailblazer in questionable decisions. ;)