And I clarified that already in my previous post. I was attempting to facilitate moving the conversation forward, rather than getting bogged down in definitions. If you want to continue to argue the definitions, however, feel free. I'll just sit back and watch.
To move the conversation forward, there should be some clear understanding what is being discussed. Confusion sets it backwards. That's why distinguishing DRM and authentication was important to highlight.
But that is exactly the same with GOG.com for most of their windows games. They are msi files, meaning they are using the windows installer. Just because the Steam-framework does include an installed does not mean that the game contains any form of DRM.
GOG allows you to download explicitly, and you can back up that download. GOG guarantees that you can later use it without relying on GOG service and your account being active. You don't even need to run the installer if you don't want to - you can simply unpack it with innoextract (that's what I do for DOSbox and ScummVM games anyway, when playing them on Linux - there is no point to run any installers for them).
Steam doesn't do it. You have to #1: copy / archive the downloaded result (i.e. Steam doesn't care to provide you with a downloadable tarball / installer), and #2: you have to do
/roll to guess whether that copy will work without the client. In some cases it can, in others not really. Steam doesn't inform you about it when you make your purchase. And #3 - their official backup tool is totally DRMed.
As I said - they aren't amateurs. If they cared, they could make this process DRM-free proper (like Humble Bundle do - they also have a mixture of DRM-free and DRMed offerings). Yet they obviously don't care, so I prefer to support distributors who treat their users normally and don't proliferate DRM in general.
