I spent a few minutes going over old interviews and didn’t find anything insinuating that would be “soon”. Most I could find was:
We actually want to work with them to make sure that, if they want to use SteamOS or offer a SteamOS based alternative, that can be done
Once it’s widely available, not only are we excited to see other manufacturers making their own handheld PC gaming devices, we’re excited to see people make their own SteamOS machines which could include small PCs that they put next to their TV
I think it’s pretty silly to expect Valve to release SteamOS when it doesn’t even have a (immutable) package manager, among many other missing features.
Two years ago Valve advised it would be generally available shortly after launch. I find it less silly to expect a company to shoot straight with the consumer than it is to apologize on their behalf (parasocial creatures though we may be.)
