If it succeeds, yes,it could, for sure, though you can not expect great WiFi performance from it.
Though there is a caveat to it. We as Purism would probably not be able sell a product with the free firmware preinstalled due to radio regulations - which will be equally problematic for Pine. I am not sure how a business can handle this legally without getting into trouble with FCC and/or CE - but FCC troubles me more since the FCC mandates that a user must not be able to change the licensed radio characteristics. If you have access to the full firmware stack then you can also operate the radio in non-licensed ways. I guess it would take an army of lawyers to figure out ways around this for such free radio firmwares in commercial products.
Firmware being open does not necessarily mean the end user is able to change it. For that, an interface has to be provided as well.
It is a sick move to force goods producers and service providers to be law enforcement as well. It’s not their job and it should never be. As it is now, we have closed radios and political correctness censorship. Same stupid root cause.
A digital signature could also be used to make the firmware open but not alterable, even when an interface exists to update the firmware.
That may be as far as you can go to ‘verify’ that the open firmware is the real firmware, and not a work of fiction designed to mislead, while still staying within a requirement not to tinker with the firmware.
In other words, it depends a lot on whether the goal is auditability, alterability or both.
If the sole goal is being “blob free” then the above should be adequate. However inquiring minds do like to tinker …
the funny thing is the bad guys won’t bother with tinkering with commercial modems. If they would like wreak havoc, they can just go with a software-defined radio connected to some few kW of a transmitter.
There is a concern about viruses altering the modem firmware, but then again, what is closed software history telling us about its resistance to viruses?
I’m willing to forgo tinkering with radio parameters, albeit not entirely (I reserve the right to switch the damn thing on or off as I please). I’m not willing to forgo auditability.