"Or just undercutting Wi-Fi vendors like Ubiquiti who basse their work on OpenWRT anyway."

Not sure about today, but this company used to sell hardware whose capabilities were IIRC only "fully enabled" if the buyer used the company's closed source OS. An open source OS might work with the hardware but the buyer would not get the same performance.

At the time, the HN comments continuously supported this company. It appeared that for these commmenters, this was a worthwhile sacrifice. They would just keep recommending Ubiquiti. (Unsolicted recommendations)