Paul, I think that (Ubuntu) users should direct their complaints to the manufacturer, becouse that's the logic place where comments have to be addressed to stimulate the interest in Linux. What I can I do is to offer my help under the terms of a collaboration with the manufacturer or other product reseillers. I do not intend to release the source code of a driver working empirically. In the long run, there are no advantages in just giving partial or unstable support to (some of) the devices based on this chipset.

When ready, I will share a basic binary-only module for some time, with the hope that growing number of users will "react" to this situation by reporting their pains to the manufacturer directly. Probably the company will rise to the bait.