Open-source "virtual joystick" (like PPJoy)--does it exist?

[vputz]

I'm trying to reinvigorate an old serial PC controller, the SpaceOrb 360 (so this is only distantly related to arcade controls right now, but I need control experts--I don't know of any arcade games that would benefit from a six-axis controller squatting on my CP!).

My previous attempt worked--I wrote a full HID driver for the SpaceOrb (http://hidsporb.sourceforge.net), but it only worked with versions of the firmware that XP's "serial device detection" would detect.

In any case, it would be simpler to divide the driver into two parts: a virtual joystick device driver and then a user-space program to read the serial port and send messages (via IOCTL or HID messages) to the driver that set the axes, buttons, etc.

The problem is... I'm lazy.  It's been a long time since writing hidsporb, and frankly I just don't like writing device drivers; while working with hidsporb, I managed to make my computer unbootable at least once, and occasionally needed to do quite a bit to recover from hard drive issues (yes, errant pointers can be very nasty in a device driver!).  So frankly I'd like to find a virtual joystick device driver.

PPJoy would work, and I see a lot of projects using PPJoy.  But the author has evidently made the decision that it will not be open-source, and that makes me very sad ("free as in beer" is not as good as "free as in speech", and source code for such a device driver would be very educational).

I'd like to avoid writing the thing.  Does anyone know of an open-source alternative to PPJoy that would create a virtual joystick that you can control from user space?

Thanks-->VPutz