The alternative would be to have drivers that work against a fixed common ABI (or API, if you just want source level compatibility). Good lucking trying to get

The alternative would be to have drivers that work against a fixed common ABI (or API, if you just want source level compatibility). Good lucking trying to get operating systems to agree on this ABI. Linux is constantly breaking these internal APIs for a reason: to keep adding new (hardware) features, while preventing each driver from implementing large amounts of would-be-common code each in their own non-standard and slightly broken way. That's why some types of drivers tend to be huge on Windows: they're offering functionality that the (relatively stable) driver API doesn't support. This approach requires drivers with user interfaces. Good luck doing that cross-platform. What you're asking for is highly impractical.