Would it be possible for you to build a somewhat feature-limited implementation of balenaOS as a native or Docker service on top of Debian? I’d like to simplify evaluation of balenaCloud to deploy apps with VPN and other services, without necessarily enabling remote image updates and other items that would require a specific disk format or a specific host distribution outside of the balenaOS sandbox. This sort of “by degrees” approach would enable faster evaluation with less commitment than flashing a board and giving up whatever other tools are used in the OS image.
It seems conceivable to me that BeagleBoard.org could one day flip to running Debian itself as more of a managed service (guest distribution), but that isn’t an easy switch to flip. Trying to integrate balenaOS and BeagleBoard.org Debian with balenaOS as the guest is a far simpler first step for new users and BeagleBoard.org community support.