> >> And this is important if you see that the Suse Server (for example)
> >> doesn’t have a problem providing you with firmware.
> >
> > Unfortunately this was one of the decisive criteria my employer decided
> > to use SuSE instead of Debian.
>
> Just this afternoon i wrote hw requirements for my client. Free drivers
> are mandatory, nvidia explicitly excluded.
>
> > I'd rather stick with a Devuan that actually can be used in a
> > professional environment; I think we agree here.
>
> Professional environments should use professional hardware.
> Harware w/o open specs is not professional.
>

It seems to me we are kinda at an impass, if I want a powerful graphics card I
have to get nvidia or AMD's radeon series which both require, to get a lot out
of the card, proprietary or partaily proprietary drivers. But if I want
something that works well and that I might modify, then those are out of the
question.
As for the question of "Professional hardware" I think you'll find many people
who will dissagree with your definition of it (FYI I'm not amoung them).
However, either way it seems that the hardware market has the upper hand since
they can, and probably will, just strangle linux into the weakest drivers and
cards on the market. That will in turn kill the demand for linux, not because
there is something wrong with linux and your above stated ideals mind you,
but rather, most people, my self included to some extent, judge linux,
at first, by it's:

GPU prefomance.
Boot speed.
Quantity of bugs.
Severity of bugs.
Whether it runs on/with there current hardware (including printer(s)).
Ease of use.
Games.

But not necessarily in that order.
As a reasult, those of us that might have become brillent software devs and
great community contributers, never reach the level of expertiece that
proprietary software can never allow or bestow. So Linux, being
that it is grown, tested, and developed, by the community, can't survive
because there is no community to do the above stated work.
So, sadly, either way you loose, at least until someone, that
understands the worth of Linux or open specs, becomes a hardware dev
and publishes the specs, or founds such a company. There was a
laptop, crowd funded, that did just that, but I can't remember
the url, they started shipping this october. Aside from this one
instance, I know of no other.

David