It is actually a term for software that publishers no longer make available for sale.
Devs usually don't care, but if they do they can sue the person making it available and have it pulled.
It is a very, very 'grey' area.

Edit: Ninja'd by the big red eyeball. :-)

Edit 2: These 3 Star Trek games can no longer be termed 'abandonware' since they are now offered for sale here legally.
Most good abandonware sites like DJ Oldgames will now pull them and include a link to GOG.

That's what I thought. Thank you for the info.

How are you today? I hope you are doing well?

I would imagine that the cost and leg work needed to sue all the different websites would be to great to justify taking any legal action.

What I don't understand is that if many of the old developers have these old games floating around as abandonware, and if they own the rights still, why not just let GOG have them all to sell and then the developers make money. Surly this is better than just letting them get downloaded for free on some questionable websites.

And how are you, Ednre? How is the knee, and how is your day?

But what if he goes crazy and changes his avatar to something Star Trek related? :-)

I am not sure I could deal with that much change, I already need to deal with Fearfuls new avatar ;-)

Many of these games are buried under so many layers of copyrights that no one really knows who owns them.
That's why GOG spends so much time unraveling the mess.

I and my knee are OK today.

If I change my avatar it will be to Dr. 'Bones' McCoy.
He's a grumpy bastard like me. :-)

I was a bit disappointed that I missed my 666 rep point. It seemed to jump a few numbers. I was going to change my avatar to something more demonic, mainly to see how mad you would get, but also due to the 666 number and the whole devil thing. :-)

How is work going, do you have long before you can go home?

*big tired and a little sleepy hug*

I won't do that to you but is it OK if I get rid of this hat and fox fur?
It's hotter than hell in this weather! ;)

Glad to hear you and your knee is okay. But I fear that if you change your avatar, Moon will likely break your other knee and make you put the old avatar back. :-)

*big hug*

Yeah we don't want to risk you dying of a heat stroke ;-)

Oooooooh Star Trek games! Time to start hoping for Bridge Commander and Starfleet Command...

I would never use such methods, you should know me better :P

I'm not a huge Star Trek fan like I am Star Wars, but I do like it. While today's releases aren't my cup of tea, I'm VERY excited to see them because 1) they represent some nice inroads into getting formerly impossible games here and 2) I know the two adventure games are a pair that are going make a lot of people very happy. I think they were a couple of the more highly regarded Trek games.

It's sort of like when GoG got Monkey Island, Outlaws, Loom, etc - while not LucasArts games I'm head over heels for I was thrilled to see them here because I know tons of people had been waiting on them.

Huh? I just kept nagging him... what do you think I did? :P

OK, they're mine.
Letting Galaxy install 25th as we speak. :-)

I can understand your way of thinking. It is indeed very nice to have some more Good Old Games here, and especially ones that have such a fan base. You only have to look at the release thread to see all the excitement. They are like a bunch of excited kids. :-)

I'm scared to even think about it. Who knows what evil machines you could construct while working for Owl. :-)