For me the distinction is, can I play the game on my computer running my distro of choice, or can I only play it on the Steambox, which happens to be running Linux.
it would seem that whatever games are made available for steambox would be binary compatible with other Linux distributions
I have seen nothing that would indicate this one way or the other.
It would seem odd for them to launch the Linux client with the fanfare that they did and then pull the rug out from under everyone once the Steambox is launched, though I suppose it could happen. Besides making Steambox fundamentally incompatible would actually be more work than using standard parts.
Regards distros, they don't seem to mind people repackaging for other distros though it would be unrealistic to expect support for running the games under every conceivable distro of which there are thousands.
For me the distinction is, can I play the game on my computer running my distro of choice, or can I only play it on the Steambox, which happens to be running Linux.
it would seem that whatever games are made available for steambox would be binary compatible with other Linux distributions
I have seen nothing that would indicate this one way or the other.