I saw this article referenced over on PC Per and thought this might be of interest over here in the Tek Syndicate community.
The FCC has a proposal to require firmware loaded on radio devices to be signed. (This is of the same ilk as Microsoft requiring secure boot and not allowing an option to turn it off meaning, in essence, you couldn't run any OS other than Windows.) This could mean that it would no longer be possible for people to flash their radio-containing networking hardware (or "routers" as the masses call them) to put DD-WRT, OpenWRT, etc on instead of the stock firmware.
I definitely prefer to use these open-source firmware options over the stock whenever possible. I've flashed a fair number of routers both for myself and others. They are almost always more reliable (and versatile) afterwards. (Unfortunately, I do not have the option at the moment. In order for everything to work properly, I have to use the router provided by Google Fiber. Thus far I haven't found anyone who has successfully configured an alternate router to be fully functional on their network. I can't complain too much though...what it does, it does well and with very few hiccups.)
If you value open-source firmware on your Wi-Fi devices, you may want to write the FCC with your comments.