Valve could open source the Steam Controller driver (including the Steam Input configuration and full set of functionality) and make it installable to use without Steam. And for Linux users, at least the core driver could be integrated into Linux for out of the box usability. This would be my perfect scenario. No need to emulate a different type of device, it is its own. A man can only dream.
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According to Russ from Retro Game Corps (YouTube), in Windos, without Steam running, the new Steam Controller acts like a keyboard (mapping the d-pad to WASD, etc).
He also said that Rocknix (a Linux distro for Rockchip-based handhelds) already recognizes the Steam Controller, suggesting that other Linux distros could pretty easily include drivers as well, if they haven't already.
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I would imagine it's just some sort of really basic shim driver to get a communication channel between the controller and steam, then from there everything just goes through steam input.
That's the kind of choice you make when you need to just get 'it' working. IIRC when the deck, its input depended (more?) on the steam client too. I'd imagine that they'll finish the slow part of the process eventually to make the controller work more generally too.
When you check KDE's gamepad page without Steam running it appears like any other controller. Back buttons are just additional buttons.
It's a shame that the capacitive joysticks aren't buttons as well. And I'd expect the gyros to just appear alongside the other axis as pure numbers but unfortunately they do not. Same with the touchpads.
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