I wouldn't call it optimism per se, not in absolute terms at least. That will certainly continue to be a problem. But Apple messing up their own software either by accident or on purpose is a nice boon. And a single piece of consumer hardware being so good that that their a patreon for it is also interesting and good.
For the reasons you say, I personally would rather buy e.g. some pine64 thing just might benefit from this porting work. (Probably more in the userland than kernel itself, tbh.)
The one good path I see for hardware is that in the system on chip era, open designs can gain a foothold by saving the companies money, just as no one could compete with free linux for server software 2 decades prior. There was no hope getting a foothold with 1 design = 1 chip, but a world where people can mooch some free IP for their dohicky might do the trick.
For the reasons you say, I personally would rather buy e.g. some pine64 thing just might benefit from this porting work. (Probably more in the userland than kernel itself, tbh.)
The one good path I see for hardware is that in the system on chip era, open designs can gain a foothold by saving the companies money, just as no one could compete with free linux for server software 2 decades prior. There was no hope getting a foothold with 1 design = 1 chip, but a world where people can mooch some free IP for their dohicky might do the trick.