Oh I concur.

I'm most curious to see the state of the physical copy (I'm getting non-Steam the DRM Free version) since it seems Larians definition of DRM is different to mine.

The Physical Copy available on Amazon or elsewhere demands steam for playing so much about drm-free.

Unless I've missed an update or misunderstood from the get-go, Galaxy is optional for installations and updates. GOG will continue to provide installers and patches the same way they do now. Only the GOG Downloader is going away, but Galaxy will provide the same functionality. It's up to you as to whether it auto-updates.

Could be that larian want a community going trough the general chat that the game has, gog version as of now have the chat but as you are not connecting anywhere it is a dead feature. There is of course lan/ip but I imagine you'd use the ingame chat instead of the general chat then.
Don't make sense to hold the game for 2 months just for galaxy though.. I mean the gog version plays just fine and you can play with friends who have the steam version.

Not according to Larian for the autopatching is expected by them for gog galaxy. You can read a few older posts in this thread and see by yourself.

Otherweise you can read this Larians update on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/larianstudios/divinity-original-sin/comments?cursor=6958986#comment-6958985

Or this post with gathered Larian announcements on Kickstarter: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/coming_soon_divinity_original_sin/post573

So... there really is only Windows builds of D:OS available on GOG? Can a backer who's already redeemed on GOG confirm this? I see the gamecard lists it as only compatible with "Windows (XP, Vista, 7, 8)"...

I could live without full multiplayer features for a few months; but forcing me to play it on Windows, when I already played a fully functional, "launcher-free" Mac build on Steam two months ago? Surely you jest, GOG. Under these circumstances switching my key away from Steam would be sheer stupidity on my part. But oh well, perhaps I'll get a copy from GOG as well at some point in the future, when this whole mess is far behind us... and maybe that's what GOG would prefer, assuming that they earn little if anything from KS backers redeeming keys here. :/

Still, I almost can't believe how badly botched this launch seems, for a title that GOG themselves announced as coming here ~4 months ago, and for which they were willing to compromise on their 'one worldwide price' principle, no less. :/

As backers we were offered a choice and had to reply to an email if we wanted a non-steam one.

It will be sent out a few weeks after release according to the email.

They did say in those comments these would include the patch - so I'm hoping they're stand alone installers with no patch / connection requirement.

So I still think Larian is doing what it thinks is right in everyones best interest and responding to changes since it appears the later release physical copy was something that only came up AFTER those Kickstarter comments.

Well i don't want it to connect anywhere so i hope this is optional. Talk about immersion breaking.

Yes I know its drm-free only for backers - later buyers will get only a steam version of the game with the physical copy.

I'm still catching up from vacation, so as I say, I may have missed something. But I didn't see anything in the Larian post that says it will force you to autopatch. That being said, they could code the game to always connect to the internet on start-up and then refuse to run if it isn't patched to the latest. But that would be functionality apart from how Galaxy is generally intended to be used, at least by my understanding.

If they are going to require an internet connection to play single-player, as well as force patching before running, then I won't be buying this game.

Ahh...yeah - that's bollocks.

The biggest problem is that it does not state on Amazon that you need steam for it. On german Amazon they were already forced by users to add a line that it needs Steam for playing for the collectors edition the other one still does not state anything about steam. All the other amazons did not write down that you need steam. A lot of people will be pissed of by this.

Day one patch is already on steam, so all the foreign voiceovers, etc...

I doubt they're talking about the single player when they're talking about patching.

Sounds more like they're super keen to make sure that everyone running multiplayer are running builds the same.

It wouldn't be beyond a reach to imagine developers release single player games on GOG without requiring Galaxy - but the multiplayer component would require regular updating to engage with to play over Galaxy.