i was going to write something long and concrete about this to keep speculation down to a minimum, but screw it.
andrew has left massdrop. massdrop has since reneged on their schedule, donation and pretty much everything else that was ever said to me. i've given the parties involved enough time, and i give up. at current, i am no longer associated with massdrop.com in any way shape or form.
the concrete plan has changed to me paying for an alternate design courtesy of carpekeyboards and in collaboration with bunnylake at ctrlalt.io, which have always been friends of the site, myself and the community, and won't spend 6 months screwing me and the group of thousands of dollars and hours/weeks of wasted time. if i sound bitter about massdrop, it's because i am; i have expressed this privately, diplomatically for months now, but massdrop.com does not deserve a single dollar from the keyboard community or commercial use of any of the community development that it has taken advantage since its inception.
regarding the new carpekeyboards pcb, it features an integrated controller that runs Hasu's TMK firmware (ie, same firmware as the classic JD40), and has more connectivity around the switches.
bunny has just ordered the first round of prototype boards. we'll be updating more often now that we have control of things again. carpekeyboards is making extremely good progress on the design, and once they're ready to talk about it in more detail, anything they say about their new design will apply to the smallfry as well. we are all paying for this board out of pocket, so please accept some patience on making sure the board is correct and costs are contained; at the moment we're looking at prices around 3x the cost of the original jd40 pcb, so i'm attempting to work out more buyers or less assembly at the factory.
FINAL NOTE: i have never said this explicitly (and no one has ever offered, despite me stating several times that there is no money for donation to the Walter family) BUT if anyone is willing to NOT TAKE DELIVERY of their product, I will donate any and all kit payments directly to the Walter family. Again, I still cannot give refunds, but if you opt to NOT RECEIVE YOUR PRODUCT, I WILL DONATE YOUR PAYMENT TO THE SMALLFRY'S FAMILY.
thanks for your patience everyone.