Witty pun?
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shear_strength_(soil]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shear_strength_(soil[/url])

No, but it sure seems to have a bearing on how much i care about its effects. That's probably why i'm quite insterested in what Impulse DRM and Steam DRM do, and not so much concerned with whatever lurks under the hood of 'crapware essentials' or if wheter or not i could/should call it DRM.
Easy. The guy establishing what xyz is, it's probably the same guy who considers Impulse DRM to be a 'download manager...with added features'. With such...whimsical approaches anything is possible.

The differences are fairly simple.
While Steam and Impulse are similar services,
-Steam must be running to download, install, update, and play games; it cannot be uninstalled or products purchased via Steam will no longer function (unless you crack it, which I would not recommend, since it's illegal and may or may not trigger VAC bans of your Steam ID in VAC-secured games)
-Impulse is not necessary for running games and need not even be installed unless the user wishes to install or update his purchases
-Stardock (Impulse) offers a vendor-neutral DRM that is entirely separate from Impulse, known as GOO (all copies of Red Faction Guerrilla use GOO), with plans for license transfer and a flexible server backend; GOO utilizes a one-time activation based on email address and does not have typical install limits (the system will be alerted if you activate your game on 50 machines within a month or other obvious signs of foul play, but these limits renew automatically and even the most reformat-happy power users should never encounter them)
-Steamworks, Valve's quasi-competition to GOO, forces the Steam client on users, so even retail copies of games must install and run Steam to play purchased games (see Dawn of War II or Modern Warfare 2)
-Impulse includes the Impulse Anywhere service, which allows users to download games outside of Impulse (installation and updates still require Impulse to be installed, but this may change; details on the future of the service are not entirely clear to me); this is limited to Stardock-published games at this point
Something to note about Impulse Anywhere is that offline installs are supported. You never need to connect to the internet with the Impulse client to install or run games downloaded from Impulse Anywhere.

While the differences are fairly simple, tap-dancing around describing what Impulse does makes you come across as rather dishonest. The question could have been answered extremely simply: Steam is a distribution platform and is necessary to download, install, update, and play any games purchased through it; Impulse is a distribution platform and is necessary to download, install, and update games purchased through it, but is not required to play the games. Nothing beyond that really needs to be stated unless someone asks for additional details. Diving into a bunch of negative-spin caveats for Steam and positive-spin caveats for Impulse only results in making everything you say seem suspect, regardless of the veracity of the information. I tell you this because it's a rather bad habit you have and something you really should avoid if you want people to take what you say seriously.

Had he been reading any of this thread, he would have been aware of those differences. Rather than repeat what has been stated, I provided additional details.
Impulse and Steam share many benefits and flaws. Why state what is shared when the objective is to examine the differences between the platforms? Why praise Steam when this thread is clearly critical of the service? Had someone asked me to explain the strengths and weaknesses of the two platforms, I would have done so. However, in the spirit of this thread, the more appropriate question is, "Why is Steam bad, and why are some of its competitors less bad?"

I'm guessing Namur is quite aware of what Steam and Impulse already do and was simply stating his preference for dealing with actual information rather than quibbling over definitions. But I'll let him speak for himself rather than continue with my clumsy guesswork. But regardless of your purported or actual intent, the result was what I commented on. Whether intentional or not, the bias that is communicated in your posts makes it hard to take any information you present at face value. As I have also had several conversations with you regarding Impulse and GOO, I'll tell you that currently I take anything you say regarding Stardock or Impulse with a very large grain of salt as I do not consider you a reliable source of information, regardless of whether this is intentional or not on your part.
What place do praise, criticism, strengths, and weaknesses have in stating what a service does? All of those things are matters of opinion, and have no place in answering a question about matters of fact. This is something that comes across as deceptive and highly biased, when someone asks for simple facts and is instead handed a generous helping of opinion.
I'm not going to argue further with you about whether or not your posts come across as biased and deceptive. As someone who has read your posts and had several discussions with you, I am telling you that from where I stand they do come across as such. What you choose to do with this information is up to you.

I'm not sure if I see a purpose in your words. You speak of my "habits" as if you are familiar with my person. How you can judge my character with such confidence, based on a reasonable debate in a video game discussion forum, is beyond my understanding. I'm not going to argue further with you about whether or not your posts come across as condescending and self-righteous. As someone who has read your posts and had several discussions with you, I am telling you that from where I stand they do come across as such. What you choose to do with this information is up to you.

edit- screw you quote function

For my purpose, I'm attempting to provide a bit of guidance on how you might communicate better, at least within the confines of this particular forum. As for my own posts, I think you should have also included "arrogant" and perhaps "patronizing" as well. ;)

As Phoenix pointed out, i was not asking you what the differences between steam and impulse are. I was telling you why i'm interested in both of them as DRM schemes, and in a polite sort of way, i was telling you that i think your analogies between such DRM schemes and windows essentials, download managers, isntallers and God knows what else, are nothing but bullshit. Then again, i really wasn't expecting much from someone who has nothing to stand on as far as lobbying for impulse goes except for the 'If impulse is DRM, everything is DRM. Since some things are not DRM, impulse is not DRM either" theory. I'd say that sums up your litlle theory quite nicely, wouldn't you ?
Your notions of what constitutes DRM, of what a download manager function is supposed to be and last but not least your notions of 'added features' are quite entertaining though. At least as entertaining as any run of the mill steam fanboy rant. Different jersey, naturally, but basically...

Do you know what Steamworks does? You state that it is quasi-competition to GOO but yet again, GOO is just a DRM scheme, Steamworks is the whole backend to the Steam software; a developer who chooses to use Steamworks can save the users save-games and game configurations to the Steam servers so that all fresh installs start with the configs you've made prior, it adds the option to include advanced community features and achievements.
Steamworks is DRM in the meaning that it cannot be run outside of Steam but Steamworks as an API has nothing to do with the DRM part of Steam (you can have games on Steam with and without Steamworks, both of which still require Steam to be running while playing the game - we will not discuss here if that is good or bad).
As for the quasi-competition, I'd rather say that GOO is the quasi-competition taking in account the total number of copies of games sold through Steam ;)
Yet again, you're comparing a DRM scheme (GOO) to an extension API (Steamworks) which has nothing to do with the DRM of the platform (Steam itself).

Hm.
http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/publishingservices.php#CEG

Seems I was wrong.

Steamworks is very similar to Games for Windows Live, if that helps. CEG is Steamworks' DRM compontent. Stardock's competing service is Impulse Reactor, which includes GOO as its DRM component.
The major difference between Impulse Reactor and Steam in that IR does not include a third party client that must execute when running a service-enabled game. GFWL is somewhere between the two, as GFWL has a client, but it is more of a background process that launches with the game, instead of a storefront, communicator, and server browser.

I find everything (and [url=http://katrinathelamia.gamerdna.com/game_post/XDiiwut/how-you-need-to-prove-that-steam-exists]here) to be hilarious.