this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2026
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"A Windows themed Linux distribution" can't really be "Windows themed" without some closed-source blobs and maybe even some backdoors sparkled here and there
Android is a Linux distribution like that and once notarisation requirement is implemented it’ll be indistinguishable from iOS. SteamOS will also likely become gradually more like iOS to appease creators of popular multiplayer games.
I can’t imagine Valve making that kind of heel turn on their (mostly) open-source philosophy. They’re marketing their whole hardware line as your hardware to do whatever you want with, going closed garden after the fact would throw away a lot of good will.
It would be very hard to imagine that Android would look as it does now 15 years ago when it was almost fully open source and AOSP had all necessities included sans device-specific firmware blobs.
I haven’t seen any indication that Valve sells their Steam Machine as an open platform, more that they dishonestly advertise it as „runs all your Steam games” (but they don’t include Windows license to actually do that).
Locking down SteamOS won’t appear as a heel flip when it comes because it’ll happen gradually. Introduce little friction here and there, slowly herding people towards preferred but optional measures, until they’re no longer optional.
@mmmm @codeinabox Sure it can.
Microsoft can distribute their Windows Desktop Environment for Linux in a repository they control. And that repo can even contain just the binaries, with their own proprietary licence. These packages can further have dependencies to other open source packages.
If Microsoft ends up with their own Linux distribution or just mirrors an existing distro (like what Alma/Rocky does with RHEL, or Ubuntu with Debian) ... That depends on how much control they want over the Linux distro base OS.
But they certainly have the possibility to add a Windows experience as an alternative to GNOME, KDE, Cinnamon, XFCE, etc, etc, building on top of a shared base OS layer. As well as providing WINE like layers to make existing Windows programs run in that environment.