They allow you to install whatever you like on their hardware. This is the same case with the steam deck - the bootloader is accessible with a button combination.
So if you don’t like steamOS, you can just install another OS from a USB device before the first login screen.
How could they possibly distribute a device that was end-user ready with any less control?
They went out of their way to make the Deck user-repairable and partnered with iFixIt to make replacement parts and documentation easily available. They built in a simple way to switch to the Arch desktop so the user could easily access non-Steam applications or take control of the OS if desired. I don’t see how the device could be more open to end-user control and still ready-to-use out of the box.
Valve does not have a monopoly by any definition of the word, especially the legal definition. They don’t have a majority of the business because they buy out the competition or use their position to drop prices to a level that others can’t compete with. They have a majority of the market because they provide a better service than the competition and have been doing it long enough to have developed a cultural gravity in the same way that Xbox, PlayStation, and Facebook and Twitter have.
That’s exactly what I believe about it. If Valve sold it without their monopolized software on it, I would be interested.
… Their… monopolized… operating system?
Which is completely open source, and thus free to everyone… and also forkable, modifiable?
… Genuienly, what are you talking about?
They allow you to install whatever you like on their hardware. This is the same case with the steam deck - the bootloader is accessible with a button combination.
So if you don’t like steamOS, you can just install another OS from a USB device before the first login screen.
Er, why would you expect the software on this to be any more restricted than the Deck’s? Have you seen some information to that effect?
No, I just don’t trust Valve. They poached the better Cassali off Doomworld, and they’ve monopolized gaming without physical media.
TBH, if Tim, Romero, or Carmack relaunched the Big Blue Disk, I would get in, in a heartbeat.
Well, OK, let me ask this a different way then…
How could they possibly distribute a device that was end-user ready with any less control?
They went out of their way to make the Deck user-repairable and partnered with iFixIt to make replacement parts and documentation easily available. They built in a simple way to switch to the Arch desktop so the user could easily access non-Steam applications or take control of the OS if desired. I don’t see how the device could be more open to end-user control and still ready-to-use out of the box.
Valve does not have a monopoly by any definition of the word, especially the legal definition. They don’t have a majority of the business because they buy out the competition or use their position to drop prices to a level that others can’t compete with. They have a majority of the market because they provide a better service than the competition and have been doing it long enough to have developed a cultural gravity in the same way that Xbox, PlayStation, and Facebook and Twitter have.