> Appears that TP-Link's heart is not in this -- they're doing the minimum to comply with FCC rules.

The FCC has commented that the minimum is significantly less than what TP-Link actually implemented. See https://ifixit.org/blog/7571/fcc-routers/ (and the linked FCC amendment) for more information.

TP-Link appears to be doing the minimum as in "minimum effort", as opposed to "minimum restriction to firmware modifications".

The article you linked shows that people saw it coming:

> Open source projects might not be fully out of the woods yet, though. A few commenters on the FCC’s post have pointed out that some manufacturers might choose to lock down the whole router—as opposed to just the radio—as a cost-saving measure, even if that’s not what the FCC intended.

At the very least they could start selling some DD-WRT routers to appease the critics and make them forget all of their other products are closed, but they aren't even willing to do that.

This is why I always buy Buffalo routers. They are marginally more expensive, but in the same way I will intentionally buy laptops that ship with Linux as a price premium, I'll also buy routers that ship open source firmware by default because my money sends a message.

It does not matter that I replaced Ubuntu on my Galago with Arch or the DDWRT on my wzr-n600 with OpenWRT, becauase I'm on the books at these companies buying hardware running open source software.