There are some fast broadcom chipsets that aren't supported by OpenWRT, supposedly because of a lack of open source wireless drivers.
Some of us have a need for fast CPUs for wired routing only, that support good performance for Wireguard. On the surface, some of these unsupported Broadcom routers would be great for a wired only router setup.
How hard would it be to support some of the SOCs in OpenWRT without wireless?
There are quite a few devices supported in the bcm53xx and bcm63xx targets, most of them are 'challenged' in the wireless department (and potential modem/ FXS/ DECT functionality doesn't exist at all). Be aware that many Broadcom-ARM SOCs with NAND flash also have an uncomfortable boot procedure, which requires parts of the proprietary bootloader to be part of the installable firmware image and adds a legal complication to redistribution.
But device support foremost depends on developers or contributors having those devices on their desk. Why would they buy those devices with their own money, knowing that a major part of their hardware capabilities will never be functional, there are plenty non-Broadcom alternatives around that don't have those restrictions. It's not a question of (partially) supported device being released (or withheld from being released), but about them being supported in the first place - at all.
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No. I don't believe we ever refused to add basic support for some device because its wireless was unsupported. Quite the opposite I'd say.
It depends on SoC and chipset family.
Can you give some examples? The only bcm53xx devices with firmware image containing optional bootloader are some (still unsupported) TP-LINK devices. That bootloader isn't not required though.
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That's the gist of what I understood the situation to be for Broadcom Northstar(?) with (only-) NAND flash, I'd be glad to learn if this aspect would be incorrect.
It's not that OpenWRT refuses to release wired only releases. I've seen reports of people who got the wired part of a Broadcom router working, but couldn't get the wireless working so they (apparently) gave up. An example is the TP-Link Archer C9 v3 (and others.)
I'd like to see some support in the documentation that wired only releases are acceptable and welcome, and recommend some naming conventions to make clear that some releases don't include wireless.