Ugh. I leave for a couple days, and come back to find DRAMA.
Anyway.
On at least three different occasions it has been stated that FS2 was included in the Installer because there were practically no means for getting the game from legal markets, apart from eBay where one might have to pay $70 for a copy. The point was to keep the game alive and possibly encourage certain factions to start publishing/distributing it again. Now, GOG is doing that. They're distributing the FS games. And with cheap prices. There is now a convenient legal method for acquiring the games. So, FS2 should be dropped off from the Installer. End of story.
If you don't like it, you can always warez0r it from the torrentsorz or HotU or whatever.
Sure, it might be more difficult for totally new people to get FSO running now that it isn't included in the Installer, but that's why at least I'm here. We'll help them. Explain what must be done in order to play FSO. Explain why GOG is fun.
This is pretty much my opinion. In case you people forgot, the Installer started out with the mission of making FSO easy and simple to install on top of FS2. As the website says, "The FreeSpace Open Installer is an attempt to significantly reduce the difficulty of installing FreeSpace Open over a Retail FreeSpace 2 installation."
The reasoning behind including the retail files was twofold:
1. The only place to get FS2 was eBay, at ridiculous prices from shady dealers.
2. Even if you bought FS2, if you were on Mac or Linux, it was very difficult to get the files in the proper places.
Now, problem one has been fixed, and the second problem is much better now, as you can simply run the GOG installer in WINE.
I always planned to take the retail files back out, and this was as good a time as any.
One more thing:
Is the installer dying? Is it not going to be maintained? Will the project not be handed over to someone else?
Where have you been for the past year? The Installer's been in a "code coma" since September 24, 2007, waiting for either me to get some enthusiasm for working on it for for someone else to show some interest in it. Just in the past week, Goober checked out the code to see if he could clean up the interface, and I started working on a new feature again, but other than that...
The reason the Installer is dying is because no one has both the skill and desire to work on it.
EDIT: Also, please direct any questions regarding the legality of the FSPort to the FSPort team themselves. They can decide if they want to cripple the FSPort download in some way that makes it require FS1, but I'm not going to make a choice and force it on them.