My sympathies! It sounds like you got much deeper than I did.
I don't regret trying it once. It's possible, after all, that the manufacturer would have said, "Look, there's demand for an open protocol, just like some engineers have been saying. Let's take on that work ourselves." And honestly, they could have gotten away with some very modest support of the project: occasional discussions with engineers and enough free hardware that we could test new builds. But no shits were given on their part, so I also don't regret shutting the project down.
I'm glad to hear things are getting better in some spaces. Let's hope it keeps going that way!
I don't regret trying it once. It's possible, after all, that the manufacturer would have said, "Look, there's demand for an open protocol, just like some engineers have been saying. Let's take on that work ourselves." And honestly, they could have gotten away with some very modest support of the project: occasional discussions with engineers and enough free hardware that we could test new builds. But no shits were given on their part, so I also don't regret shutting the project down.
I'm glad to hear things are getting better in some spaces. Let's hope it keeps going that way!