First - my motivation here is OpenCL support, not sure if it's the optimum forum for amdgpu-pro, but it is for rocm.
Guys, it's been a while since you've started either of these options. Other distributions are out in the cold - including my personal pick for all my dev machines - OpenSUSE.
Arch linux has hacked together a package but meanwhile there's nothing for the likes of RHEL7/SLES 12spX, for instance. AMD is a OpenSUSE sponsor too (I'm grateful for that!) but it does snub the idea a bit...
How much longer is it supposed to be like this? Can you break down an ETA? This seriously impedes practicality of development for me.
Managing a separate box/os installation specifically so I can use hardware (with mostly open driver components) is pretty ridiculous.
I just wanted to point out SUSE has a fantastic repository build system (OBS), which you may use internally, like the packman project has done (as have a few other corporate entities/projects - like tizen), or you could build softwares there on Novel's servers, at least for ROCm (since GPU-PRO has it's closed bits). Maybe you can split up GPU-PRO too, have a strategy where the FOSS stuff goes in the upstream build systems, and at installation time - you download the limited closed (and closed) portions, maybe like fonts or kernel-firmware. I don't know how you'll feel about any of these options but running them by you beats sitting here contemplating making room in development processes for ubuntu. To clarify, it's not an unwillingness to use ubuntu, but the side trouble that creates to development - many packages I use are too out of date on Ubuntu, even on 16.04, which is a long standing issue with the project - and ppa's don't always resolve issues at all or stably, if even available. Of course when you use RHEL/SLES you usually have a reason to, as well, and Ubuntu legitimately may not fit into those use cases.