This is so untrue. There's a whole class of devices that will never be in linux mainline kernel - experimental filesystems(remember those years wher FUSE was a

This is so untrue. There's a whole class of devices that will never be in linux mainline kernel - experimental filesystems(remember those years wher FUSE was a patch?), propietary hardware(embedded devices), kernel bypass hardware(onload), security hardening mechanisms(remember PaX?), commercial software who basically sell the driver(intel studio profiler). All this breaks every time linux releases a major rewrite. If the vendor is out of business or no longer interested in a product - you are left with the drivers that do not work. Moreover - in a case of major api breakage - its kernel contrubutors who are left with re-writing every driver for a new api, delaying the kernel releases.