> I only suggested moving towards the other options merely because I didn't
see other options at the moment.
the reason *why* there are no other options is BECAUSE PEOPLE HAVEN'T FUNDED
THINKPENGUIN ENOUGH! :) ThinkPenguin's work *IS* the reason why the AR9271's
firmware is even libre in the first place!
firmware for wifi drivers doesn't become libre all by itself. the creators
of these chipsets have absolutely no grasp of how important it is. they just
want to get product out the door, sell it, make money, rinse and repeat.
they spend the absolute minimum amount of money on firmware development to
get it out the door. they have *no idea* that their cost-cutting exercises
are the cause of problems such that people have to abandon products using
their failed and limited chipsets, not realising that if they released the
firmware it would hugely extend the lifetime of the products.
qualcomm totally replaced all the developers and the management for the
ath10k designs. that new management team GENUINELY believed that the success
of the ath9k was down exclusively to qualcomm's own efforts, not realising
that the success is down to huge libre interoperability because of available
firmware source code.
so what did they do?
develop something that is totally locked down, entirely proprietary, and
called it a "success". they have *no* idea that libre is important - for
their own financial success! - and we no longer have any contacts so cannot
reach them to explain how it really works.
this is an extremely complex situation which takes a *huge* amount of time
and effort - literally YEARS - to hand-hold these people through the
process... and it needs to be done again, and again, and again, and again.
> Although a plan is in the works to get new libre wifi firmware yes?
yeeeees... but it takes long-term ongoing funding, where the way to
*provide* that funding is to consistently and regularly buy products from
Think Penguin, *not* from their competitors whom we *know* are *not* using
the funds to pursue libre wifi firmware, whereas we know that Think Penguin
definitely is.
...start to make sense now?
