Here is a list of Open Source (only GPL, BSD, MIT or MPL licenses accepted) Linux drivers that are already written, but are not included in the main Linux kernel.org tree for one reason or another. These are all possible projects that the Linux Driver Project developers could undertake to move the driver into the main kernel tree.
Note: please do not list closed source drivers here, or ones that contain some kind of licensing issue that prevents them from being merged into the Linux source tree due to a legal issue. If no open source driver exists for the same hardware, please add an entry on DriversNeeded if one does not already exist.
Chelsio TOE and RDMA support for the Terminator family http://service.chelsio.com/ NOTE: Networking maintainers do not want support for this class of hardware in kernel!!
NDISWrapper http://ndiswrapper.sf.net/ - implements Windows kernel API and NDIS API within Linux kernel, mostly acting as a compatibility layer to be able to load proprietary windows drivers when there is no Linux driver available. Not sure if any kernel developer wants this in mainline at all, so it`s just being listed for completeness here.
kclown_spy http://clownix.net/ This kernel module permits the display of real-time plots for bandwidth of tcp/udp connexions and for qdiscs monitoring.
IMQ http://www.linuximq.net/. IFB was added to mainline to provide similar functionality as IMQ but didn't go all the way thus IMQ is still being used.
ATARI SCSI (ACSI)1, 2 need to be ported from 2.4 kernel
AEC-671X SCSI adapter driver (atp870u), was working in 2.4 kernel, broken in 2.6.
ppSCSI, drivers for various parallel-port-to-SCSI chips, so your parallel-port-connected device shows up as a SCSI device. 2.6 version here: http://penguin-breeder.org/kernel/download/
The iSCSI Enterprise Target Project, also known as IET. As explained in the IET FAQ, IET is deployed as a kernel module. In contrast with the older iSCSI target IET has been forked from, patching and recompiling the kernel is not necessary in order to use IET.
The iSCSI-SCST project. The iSCSI-SCST project is another actively maintained implementation of an iSCSI target for Linux. Compared to IET, iSCSI-SCST has a higher performance and overcomes several of the limitations of IET. For a detailed comparison of iSCSI-SCST and IET, see also http://scst.sourceforge.net/comparison.html.
Although the kernel part of the Linux SCSI target framework project (stgt) has been merged upstream in kernel 2.6.20, both the IET and the SCST projects have a considerable user base. This is because the IET and iSCSI-SCST targets have a higher throughput and lower latency than stgt. The throughput difference can be up to 50% -- see also https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/stgt-devel/2007-May/000662.html or http://groups.google.com.ph/group/open-iscsi/browse_thread/thread/7f71acbdf08339d. The performance difference is significant because stgt has been implemented almost entirely in user space, while IET and iSCSI-SCST have been implemented in the kernel. There are no plans to reimplement the stgt iSCSI target in the kernel -- to the contrary, implementing most of it in user space was one of the design goals of the stgt project.
Tape
lin_tape driver for IBM scsi/fc tape drives and libraries, open-source rewrite of the older proprietary IBMtape driver
ov511-new - adds additional decompression to the existing ov511 driver (ubuntu kernel) -- same as ov51x-jpeg? If so may not be suitable for in-kernel, see: http://www.rastageeks.org/ov51x-jpeg/index.php/Main_PageHansDeGoede is working on getting this into the mainline, decompression will go to userspace (libv4l)
http://www.linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.php/Trident_TM6000 The TV-Master TM6000 is an integrated Video decoder and USB bridge IC from Trident. There is an experimental patch that has several issues. Due to that, it is was not been included in tree, and doesn't compile with the latest kernels, due to the i2c changes.
tw68 - V4L2 driver for Techwell TW6800 based boards
Video Output
device3dfx kernel driver for Voodoo boards svn://sf.net/projects/glide
snd_bt-sco - bluetooth SCO sound driver (ubuntu kernel)
Input Devices
Acer hotkey driver http://www.cakey.de/acerhk/ (Does not work on x86-64 because it calls 32 bit protected mode BIOS routines; it can't be ported to libx86 because this can currently only make 16 bit real mode BIOS calls) (Ubuntu and Mandriva kernels)
SIS1100/SIS3100 PCI to VME interface (VME is a bus architecture popular in high-end physics labs and mission-critical systems) - the existing Linux source can be found at http://www.struck.de/linux1100.htm
vmedrv is a device driver for Linux 2.x for the PCI-VME bus adapter Model 616/617/618/620 manufactured by SBS Technologies (Bit3).
Test/development cards
ex10 ex10_i2c ex10_spi Modules for Amfeltec eX10 PCI Extender, GPL, included on accompanying CD only.
Catweasel i/o device drivers... driver for the joystick/mice/keyboard parts (sid part is covered by compatible hardsid, see Audio section), see above for the floppy controller part http://llg.cubic.org/cw/
thinkpad_ec - thinkpad embedded controller lpc3 functions, will not be accepted upstream due to authorship issues (written by an anonymous developer). (ubuntu kernel)
tp_smapi - thinkpad SMAPI support, will not be accepted upstream due to authorship issues (written by an anonymous developer). (ubuntu kernel)