But "someone else should fix it" does not help either.
If you do not provide Realtek the financial incentives (ie, not buying their products) for not maintaining proper Linux drivers (in kernel ones are what I would consider proper) then nobody in the world has a financial incentive to make them work for you. If you are buying realtek products, having them not work, and not demanding a refund for the lack of functionality, then nothing changes.
It is disingenuous to blame kernel developers for not fixing a hardware vendors shitty driver when said hardware vendor is not paying them squat.
Realtek provided a rock solid, stable, GPLv2 driver. The "proper" driver is a piece of shit, requiring a reboot after a few minutes of use. They shouldn't have changed the driver interface, leaving people like my parents with broken hardware, if they don’t have the manpower to fix this sort of issue.
If you do not provide Realtek the financial incentives (ie, not buying their products) for not maintaining proper Linux drivers (in kernel ones are what I would consider proper) then nobody in the world has a financial incentive to make them work for you. If you are buying realtek products, having them not work, and not demanding a refund for the lack of functionality, then nothing changes.
It is disingenuous to blame kernel developers for not fixing a hardware vendors shitty driver when said hardware vendor is not paying them squat.