Hello, zerocool22 and all!
I'm sorry to crash the party but it has to be done ...
While it is true there is no dev with 5D4 at hand you are confusing cause and effect. It is not lack of money setting 5D4 porting at hold. It is just lack of manpower. The skillset is one part of the deal (real hands-on knowledge on embedded systems (ARM-architecture) with some C and Assembler) *and* enough free time at hand to port it and do long-term support. Each ML port will (est.) take some houndred hours work even for those cams without new hardware architecture involved (5D4 = DiGiC6 = no existing port for DiGiC 6 architecture). And every time Canon renewing firmware you have to go through it again. Reverse engineering to find out where Canon's compiler put all the pieces where ML code has to lock in. Doesn't sound like fun and according to devs it's even worse.
Just piling up money won't solve the problem. You addressed that with the term "buying time". It may be news to you but ML dev team members do have a very solid opinion about this one.They made it absolutely clear to drop out from the project on the spot if payment is involved. This will - most likely - kill the project you want to support. There is no "ML company" with devs on the payroll. They are doing all the work in their spare time not consumed by job, family, friends and hobbies.
There was some kind of crowd-sourcing in the past for some more expensive items the devs asked for. Software licenses for professional developer programs, for example. If there is a monetary problem they just have to ask.
So: Why not contacting the very persons you want to support and ask them about this in the first place? And why here and not in the very forum (ML forum) where they are doing the thing you want to support? ML dev team is by no means anonymous. You may even ask why they tend to not react on several offers from forum users to throw in some bucks for 5D4 development.
If you have an ARM developer at hand with the will to do some serious work on it and doing long time support for it: Congrats from the community will be yours.
If people ask when to expect a cam to be supported I always will give this advice: If there is no ML port for your cam ... act like there will be no ML support for your cam ever.
Most likely 80D (or 750D/760D) will be the first DiGiC6 cam to see ML ported. But ML project does not know about timelines, milestones, delivery dates. It's ready when it is ready.
Ciao
Walter
PS: Alway have g3gg0's signature in mind: "ONLY donate for things we have done, not for things you expect!"
PPS: I'm a regular at ML forum but I'm not a developer and haven't discussed this with dev team.
PPPS: If you want to support ML there are some tasks to be done. Help text needs major work (stalling for years) or just kill some obsolete/outdated tutorials.
PPPS: Only 1D and all the C stuff (aka: Canon's professional line-up) is self-declared off-limits for dev teams.
