Are all the builds done yet fo (all seem dated 09/08/2020 so 2 days ago) ?
I ask because I was looking for re450v1 in ath79 but can't find it (was expecting it to be available as re450v1 has the ar71xx-ath79 target).
I am new to openwrt so maybe I missunderstood what I read on ar71xx-ath79.
I think you are confused, we weren't talking about if a device is supported by OpenWrt or not we were talking about a device image moving from development phase (snapshot) to a stable release image (19.07.4) your DIR-878 A1 and the EA7500 v2 are still in snapshot phase which means they are still in development which means there is no official support for them yet. in fact they warn you against using snapshots unless you are the experimental type cause snapshots might render your device nonfunctional.
Check this link please https://openwrt.org/faq/difference_between_a_release_and_a_trunk_build
Known issues
Transition to ath79: some devices that are supported in ar71xx are not yet supported in ath79: this is a community effort. Helping to port devices to ath79 to make them available in future releases is very welcome.
Yet you said 'most'. That suggests there are more mt7621 devices that have been added to master since 19.07 has seen its first release, than that there are mt7621 devices supported in 19.07. And that is a pretty bold claim.
No my friend - you are. Read again what I wrote. I have highlighted the relevant bit this time.
Now I am really confused, what are you trying to say?
We were hoping that our devices moved from development to stable by the 19.07.4 but they didn't.
And it doesn't show so far that it's on the road map to 20.xx.
What do I take from all your replies and how is it even relevant?
Device support is usually not backported from master to stable release (19.07.x at this moment), but they will be part of the next major stable release (20.xy.0 at this point). Until then, snapshots are rebuilt daily, so you will find snapshot support rather quickly after the necessary have been merged.
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There are exceptions to the rule (for devices that are common, very, very similar to existing ones (don't need anything beyond dts/ image recipe and networking/ led setup) and convince a developer that it's needed to be backported - again, it's an exception, relatively rare, less than a handful of devices make the cut.
A general feedback: just not having visibility which of device in snapshot ends up in release, will cause some disappointment. Maybe there is some device status track report that gives progress, which i was not aware.
Much of discussion of this thread seems to be based on the assumption that 19.07.4 would somehow relate to the current master or "snapshots". But no, 19.07.4 is the maintenance release for the 19.07 branch, reflecting mainly July 2019 code plus fixes, security updates and smaller other updates that have been backported from master to the old 19.07 branch.
Nothing new added to master since July 2019 is by default in the 19.07 branch. A few newer routers may have been backported into 19.07, but those are exceptions. Most new routers and features are only in master, and will then get to the next release branch, hopefully 20.x, once that branch is branched off from master in the next few months.
all development happens in master. New devices are added there. It progresses on, but no releases are made of it. Buildbot development snapshots are made from master.
before major releases, a release branch is branched off from master. This branch will get separate fix commits and releases are made of that branch. No new features are normally added to the release branches after the branching. Maintenance releases (like 19.07.4 or 18.06.8) are made from the head of the respective stable branch.
In the picture above, you can see 17.01 (retired), 18.06 and 19.07 branches, of which the releases are made.
If you don't bother clicking links I supply, or reading what I write, it can hardly be relevant indeed. Diagonal reading, then quoting and replying doesn't change that.
@tmomas spelled out the amount of devices for you to invalidate your claim, and it took you two extra round to realise you were wrong. Then @hnyman graphically illustrated what I stated earlier (and which is supported by the wiki link I supplied): devices are only backported to stable releases in corner cases.
You asked how it is relevant? It is because backporting hardware support to stable is the exception, not the norm. I wrote that explicitly in my first response, but yes, it took us ten more posts for you to realise. No offense, but the misunderstandings are on your end.
@forests_gump I could take a look at backporting EA7500 v2 support to 19.07, but it's a one-off offer. You'd have a 19.07.4 image then. Hopefully 20.xx will be forked one of the coming months and then people running recently added devices can switch to the pre-release snapshot builds.
You were hoping for something that was never going to happen. As already mentioned before, support for new devices is hardly ever backported to stable branches. That means this if your device wasn't supported in the first 19.07.x release, it won't show up in 19.07.4 or any other later 19.07.x version for that matter. You will have to wait for a stable 20.x branch the be created.
Now that this has been clarified, and since the 19.07.4 release has been rolled out and announced, please head over to the official announcement topic for feedback on this new release.