Darktable (and probably other FOSS raw developers) can handle standard DNG. They can be a bit behind for handling the newest raw formats, wrt. Adobe’s DNG converter (*), so conversion to DNG can be a solution.
But it has already happened that the conversion to DNG lost information, and that became apparent when the FOSS programs became able to handle the original raw files.
So, with a new camera, converting the raw files may make them available to FOSS programs sooner, but it’s better to also keep the original raw files.
(Note that this holds for DNG files converted from another format. DNG files natively produced by a camera are that camera’s raw format so should be viewed and treated like any other raw format)
(*: FOSS has two disadvantages compared to Adobe: they have less staff to work on new formats, and they have a much harder time getting access to the required information)