Re:Linus allows an exception for device drivers (Score 2, Insightful)

Oh, and I think that this could be a solution to your problem. Write your driver, compile it as a binary with your compiler that allows the use of it's libraries with proprietary products. Then write some interfacing code that probably has to be compiled with the kernel and makes things loadable as a module. Make the interfacing code free (GPL). The binary part with your valuable (?) driver code doesn't contain any GPL code for sure and interoperability with the kernel can be maintained by modifying the code layer inbetween the two.