Unless I'm mistaken, the rights are about distributing different game versions, not about the OS the users are using. Neither can the license force you to use a certain OS, nor will the license cease if you install a different OS on your computer after purchasing the game.

In other words, if there is a windows binary and a linux binary, a provider like GOG.com might have the rights to distribute only one of those versions, or he might have the rights to distribute both, but separately (ie. not allowed to offer both to someone who bought just one).

This is because from legal point of view each version is a different piece of software and each might have it's own license.



On the other hand we are mostly talking about DOSBox and ScummVM games that have only one version. Packaging it with a DOSBox for Windows or with one for Linux does not change the fact it's the same binary file - thus someone who bought the license for one should be able to run it in any version of DOSBox he wishes to and neither the license nor the distribution rights can dictate on what OS it can or cannot be run, just like a license cannot forbid you from running windows apps through wine.

As far as I've seen, most indie game developers don't sell different binaries separately, but rather they offer all the versions to anyone who bought the game. That's a great trend and HIB did a great job on this field too.

So the only problem is with big companies that want to drain our wallets so badly, they try to sell every version separately. These rarely provide Linux versions, so there are few such games on GOG.com, but indeed I suppose GOG.com has to negotiate the rights about these games individually. Still, for the majority of games I suppose there are no legal problems to package them differently.

That would be rather neat.

I'd love to see EV Nova on GOG, as it does have a Windows port – that was one game that was huge on the Mac, but should have gotten a lot more exposure and popularity on Windows as well. I remember sinking literally hundreds of hours into that game, through mods and total conversions.

GOG is still only using vanilla Dosbox/Boxer for Dos games (Windows games likely use WINE/commercial WINE if not officially ported). There is no real software side support.

And with the official (I believe) conversions of the two previous games, those, too, are playable on Windows and OS X/Intel.

I would love this :)

Also the Marathon games would be nice to see, granted I don't have a MAC but it would still be cool to see

They certainly would, but if you're prepared to do a little bit of work, you can get them now, through the official open-source engine Aleph One and the game data which has also been released for free.

Edit: you don't even need to do any extra work, it seems they've nicely packaged each of the games together with the engine in a zip file, so you can just extract and play.

and I should add that Aleph One officially supports Windows, Linux, and OS X (they even have a port for OS 9 too).

That too, I should have mentioned that but completely forgot typing it down.

I don't think you even need to do any work. I downloaded those games a few months ago, and they came with regular Windows installers. Download, install, play. :)

Edit: Ninja'd by another user's self-edit. ;)

Yeah, I was going off what I remembered when I last downloaded it long ago, then checked the page to make sure, and found out they'd made it easier.

Huge kudos for adding support for Mac games! Only problem is that this is gonna ruin me :-)

About time. I was tired of hacking around with PlayOnMac and the like. I'll certainly start buying more games now.

Ok, I'm gonna ask the ... bad questions (:

SO:

ppc versions? (: (No, really, 90% of my osX machines are PPC.)

Sure, dosbox, but I meant the NON-DOSBOX ones. I already did the Dosbox ones on the mac, cuz, you know. Dosbox (:

If we already own these, how do we get the osX versions? Just leech away on the page, and say "Yes gimme the dmg" or do I need to do some other trickery?

What VERSION of osX does it need? Snow Leper and above, or can they run on the non-sucky versions like Leopard? (And Tiger? Tiger would be nice. They're bouncy flouncy fun fun fun fun fun! Unlike, say, Snow Lepers. They're not bouncy or fun.)

And now: Thanks. This is a step in the right direction. Next, of course, I'd really like to have Linux, but you KNEW that was coming (: I can wait til you're ready (: