Debian and binary firmware blobs

" In many cases, the real culprit is a chipset maker, not the device maker, and problematic devices routinely switch to new chipsets without changing their USB device IDs. Since those device IDs are all Debian has access to, it may not be possible to unambiguously decide who should get the user's advocacy email."

Sounds to me like another place where the phrase 'upstream' lends a hand. I.e. it is absolutely unambiguously clear to me that the device maker should get the user's advocacy email. In this type of case however, the user has already made a bad choice in choosing an upstream source that isn't willing to provide useful product details to the customer. But just getting an on-the-record non-denial denial is sometimes both all you can get in journalism, and all that history really needed. Just getting the device maker to go on the record with how much they expect you to have blind faith in their products may also be enough to drive commerce in other better directions.