Stardock has been good about DRM in the past and when I heard about Impulse I was giddy - "Could this be," I said, 
"a digital distribution platform that isn't inferior to buying the retail copy?"

As I said, Stardock generally treats its customers pretty well, so I have high hopes here, but I've been burned so 
often on this stuff that I need to be careful. I'm hoping that someone in authority can respond to some concerns 
that I have. To try and stay away from hypotheticals, I'm pairing each of my concerns with real examples of where 
and how things have gone wrong.

First, the DRM:

How does digital distribution work? Well you pay some money, you download an install file, you run the install, and 
you play your game. Fine. Many services (I think Impulse is included here) make the download and the install 
seamless, but it still happens. So the question is, what can I do with the install file once it's downloaded?

What I'd like to do is burn it to a disc and throw it in the closet. This gives me a copy that I can use to reinstall
with or to install onto a different computer or partition. My worry is that the install file is run and then 
auto-deleted, preventing me from doing anything else with it. Let's be clear - I don't care about the install file 
itself, what I want is a hard copy that will survive hard drive failures and formats, corporate buyouts and 
bankruptcy. This can take the form of a single file or many but regardless of its form this is something that I've 
come to expect, and I believe rightfully so, when I buy a game at a store.

The key here is that I be able to actually use this copy that I've made and the reason is independence. Let's work 
with an example:

Let's suppose that I want to buy On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness (and I do). I have a few options: One, I 
could get it from Greenhouse. That would give me an installation file that I could burn to a disc and throw in the 
closet. So far so good. The problem comes when it's time to install something off of that disc - if I get it from 
Greenhouse, the game comes with mandatory software activation. In other words, when I install it I have to ask a 
server somewhere for permission and if I don't have an internet connection, or that server is down, or that server 
no longer exists, I can't play my game. This is a serious problem in theory, but I said that I didn't want to work 
with hypotheticals so here are a couple examples where this has already become an issue:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071107-major-league-baseballs-drm-change-strikes-out-with-fans.html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080422-drm-sucks-redux-microsoft-to-nuke-msn-music-drm-keys.html

I have a further personal example: I purchased a game called Firewall, made by Bolt Software, a couple years ago. It
was an interesting little indie RTS. Bolt Software has since gone out of business and, though I still have the 
install file, I can not play the game.

So Greenhouse isn't a good option, how about Steam? Well, I don't know whether Steam packages the developer's DRM 
with the game or not, but it certainly includes its own - Steam mandates activation for everything you buy through 
it. There's also spyware, but I'll get to that.

So Steam's out too. Now my hope, based on Stardock's reputation, is that Impulse is different. If I buy Precipice 
through Impulse, what am I getting exactly? Does Impulse attach DRM of its own? Is the publisher's DRM intact or 
does the Impulse version of the game have the DRM removed? Would I know the difference between a DRMed game and a 
DRM-free game available through Impulse (is it clearly marked)?

Most importantly, if I buy a game through Impulse can I throw it in the closet (with my boxed games) and know 
that it will work regardless of what happens between now and when I take it out again?

Note: This does not mean that the game can have no DRM at all. This means that any DRM would have to be independent 
of outside organizations and sufficiently permissive to let me play the game - this is vague, I'm really just 
trying to say that if I pull the game out of the closet I expect it to work. It can't be tied to a server that 
may not be up, or to the MAC address on an ethernet card that I had six years ago when I first download the game. 
A CD check on the other hand, while a pain in the butt, would still be functional six, ten, or twenty years from 
now on whatever hardware I have at that time.

Even better than burning the install file would be burning the actual contents of the retail disc. The reason for 
this is that the retail disc is sometimes needed for atypical functionality. Again, not wanting to work with 
hypotheticals:

Neverwinter Nights got Linux support after its release, but installation under Linux required pulling files off of 
the retail disc. There are several games that have worked their Linux support this way. There are also sometimes 
bonuses that come on the retail CDs - Dead or Alive (Dreamcast) included somewhat racy pictures of certain cast 
members on the GD ROM as an easter egg that was only accessible when the disc was read in a computer.

I would hate to miss out on either functionality or bonuses because I purchased a game digitally rather than in a 
store.

Can I know that the downloaded copy will be able to do everything that the boxed copy will be able to do?

All right, now let me ask about spyware:

Like DRM, spyware can come packaged with the platform (Impulse) or with the game itself. Steam, for example, 
collects all sorts of potentially embarrassing information on its users, from whether they're little wusses who 
play on easy to how pathetically many times they've died on a given map:

http://www.steampowered.com/status/ep2/ep2_stats.php

Likewise, Quake Wars incorporates ads into the game which are sold by a third party, and, along with those ads, 
bundles an app that keeps track of what players are doing in relation to the ads (how long they're looking at them, 
from what angle, etc.) and reports back to the third party with this information. Even if Impulse didn't collect 
any user information itself, if Quake Wars was sold through Impulse this would be a concern.

Any game that is surreptitiously sending home more information than is required for its operation can be labeled 
as spyware. A single player game, for example, should be sending out nothing at all beyond, perhaps, a check for 
an updated version.

Note that I don't consider opt-in user surveys to be spyware provided that they are clear and honest about what 
they are reporting back.

Will Impulse collect information on its users? If so, what information? Whether Impulse does it or not, will 
games sold through impulse collect information on their players? Will we know which games do this?

Even if Impulse packages no DRM or spyware of its own, I realize that some publishers may insist on including their 
DRM with games that Impulse distributes alongside other games which may be DRM-free. If I'm going to use impulse 
I need to know which is which.

If DRM restrictions are different for different games, will the games be *clearly* labeled so that I know which 
games come with which restrictions before I buy them?

I've tried to make both the questions and the motivation for them as clear as possible here. The bolded questions 
are the important ones - feel free to respond either to the questions directly or to their intent.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post and answer my questions. I hope that this will allay not just my 
fears, but those of others as well.