14 DAY TRIAL // The Linux community has pressured the GOG developers to remove the password-protected archives that were present in a number of their games, making the contents of those titles accessible to all the platforms.
The Linux platform is all about openness and you rarely stumble upon protected archives. Almost any kind of installers or archives can be extracted with just a click and the support for pretty much all the formats is usually provided by default. That means users don't need to install third-party applications to handle archives, although there are plenty available. Everything is handled natively.
The GOG Windows installers are a different matter because they are made with a piece of software called Inno Setup and some games had password-protected archives, which means Linux users could not decompress the games. This is required, if you want to play the games on Linux.
No password-protected archive is good news for Linux users
Just because a GOG published game is packaged for the Windows platform, it doesn't mean that Linux users can't play it. They could technically use the provided installer, but they can also unpack the game with a tool called Innoextract. The problem is that this tool can't handle password-protected files, hence the conundrum.
"We've heard your concerns regarding this solution and we do agree it could have been better. Although the same could probably be said about many other answers to this problem, it doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do better for our community. To that end we will be removing the mentioned archive protection from the select Windows installers that had it until a better solution, both technically and philosophically, is ready," said a GOG.com representative.
The initial reasoning was simple. The files were protected so that Windows users, at least the less savvy ones, won't be able to mess with the files. Now that Linux users are a part of the GOG gaming community, the company needs to change its stance.
It's quite possible that some users will buy only Windows games and run them without any problems on Linux systems, so basically you are stopping one of your clients to play the game.