> To my knowledge, the OpenWrt One is the first router designed specifically for mainline/stock OpenWrt

The issue is that there never really was (and arguably still ain't) such a thing as "mainline/stock OpenWrt". From its very conception, OpenWrt has been developed with the expectation that it'd be tailored to specific devices, much like (for example) LineageOS and other custom Android versions are tailored to specific devices. Every device has different flash layouts, different onboard devices (meaning different required drivers and different initial configurations to ensure that the user can access a fresh install at 192.168.1.1 via Ethernet), even different CPU architectures. The closest thing to "mainline/stock OpenWrt" would maybe be builds for generic non-router platforms like QEMU or x86 PCs, but even these are just additional variations on the same "shared base + device-specific customization" development and distribution model. Even the OpenWrt One's builds of OpenWrt are no exception to this; they're still tailored to the specific hardware and quirks of the underlying BananaPi-based hardware, and not some generic "mainline/stock OpenWrt" image.

In light of this:

> That rules out every Linksys or GL-iNet router ever sold, because they don't ship with stock OpenWrt

They don't need to ship with stock OpenWrt to have been designed for OpenWrt, because "stock OpenWrt" ain't really a thing (per above), and because being designed for OpenWrt is a matter of whether or not the manufacturer endorses/supports the user going to openwrt.org and downloading/flashing some actively-maintained image for that particular router - and in the Linksys case at least, that was and is true (and trivially so; you just upload the OpenWrt "factory" image as if it was any other Linksys firmware update - which is unsurprising, since the stock Linksys firmware was itself (allegedly) a customized OpenWrt).

And in light of that:

> as it sits, the burden of proof is on the accuser, which would be you in this case.

That burden of proof has been satisfied, by quoting Linksys' own marketing materials (plus some firsthand corroboration, having ran OpenWrt on the WRT1900AC and WRT3200ACM).

I'll admit I'm being a little pedantic here, but nowhere near as much as one would need to be to insist that the OpenWrt One is literally the "first router designed specifically for OpenWrt" despite there clearly having been numerous preceding routers designed specifically for OpenWrt.

> So if OpenWrt One isn't first, who is?

No idea. I only know that the Linksys WRT line was designed specifically for OpenWrt multiple years before the OpenWrt One existed. Others probably existed before then. That's going by my already-pretty-strict definition of "vendor explicitly advertises OpenWrt compatibility and ships with firmware derived from OpenWrt"; loosening that to one or the other would probably extend that timeline by quite a bit.

Technically you could argue that the ol' reliable WRT54G was the first, in a backwards sort of way: OpenWrt (and DD-WRT, and Tomato, and probably others) descend from the open-source parts of the WRT54G's original Linux-based firmware, after all, and the router was clearly designed to work with that firmware. But that's certainly stretching the meaning of "designed for" quite a bit :)