The title is a gross exaggeration of the policy change MS is making. Come 2021, what will go away is the ability to sign drivers for Windows 7 and 8 without passing WHQL/HLK compliance tests. That's it. You can still update compliant drivers, and you can still ship unsigned drivers if your users are willing to disable signing (not great, but there are plenty of shitty vendors who do this already).
Are there some number of important drivers that absolutely can't (rather than currently don't) pass WHQL/HLK tests? Sure, but I can't help but feel that the main "victims" of this will be shitty vendors with buggy drivers that have lagged in supporting newer Windows variants (and have thus kept their users stuck on older variants). Is OSR one of these shitty vendors? Maybe not, and they are a paragon of quality stuck in a rare corner case of WHQL/HLK compliance. But it does sound like they have spent the last year complaining about the policy change rather than working to meet WHQL/HLK compliance - I don't see any evidence in their post of working with MS to improve the WHQL/HLK tests.
Are there some number of important drivers that absolutely can't (rather than currently don't) pass WHQL/HLK tests? Sure, but I can't help but feel that the main "victims" of this will be shitty vendors with buggy drivers that have lagged in supporting newer Windows variants (and have thus kept their users stuck on older variants). Is OSR one of these shitty vendors? Maybe not, and they are a paragon of quality stuck in a rare corner case of WHQL/HLK compliance. But it does sound like they have spent the last year complaining about the policy change rather than working to meet WHQL/HLK compliance - I don't see any evidence in their post of working with MS to improve the WHQL/HLK tests.