Which side do YOU take in this?(Creative and Daniel_K)

[Adragontattoo]

http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=soundblaster&thread.id=120975

Well Creative responded and is backpeddling like mad, too bad they deleted the original thread and are now trying to make it sound like a misunderstanding.

Creative, the damage has been done. The mistakes, inactions and outright fallacies you have presented have been revealed and examined. I dont claim to have one bit of a clue of how to rectify the situation, the internet has a very long memory, I doubt that the backlash will continue as it has been going but I do know that many people are sure to remember this and bring it up at any chance they get.

 

[Audioaficionado]

http://forums.creative.com/creative...hread.id=116332&view=by_date_ascending&page=1

Why hasn't Creative deleted this thread yet

Maybe they want to see how deep this rabbit hole goes?

Creative is within their legal rights to not write Vista drivers and force everyone with Vista to upgrade. They can also cripple the cards as they see fit.

So unless someone writes cleanroom drivers, Creative can sue the pants off anyone like Danial doing so even if they don't take one red cent for donations.

However people can vote with their wallets and buy other brands.

I hope these enhanced functional drivers make to to a server in a nation that doesn't have to worry about any legal actions from Creative

Edit: looks like Creative might be charging money for Vista functionality.
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=1726

 

[Hardin]

That ed bott article is almost a year old, and Adragontattoo it looks like that thread was deleted as well. I'm getting a message not found error, but I did manage to see it before it was deleted.

 

[Adragontattoo]

Why hasn't Creative deleted this thread yet

Maybe they want to see how deep this rabbit hole goes?

Creative is within their legal rights to not write Vista drivers and force everyone with Vista to upgrade. They can also cripple the cards as they see fit.

So unless someone writes cleanroom drivers, Creative can sue the pants off anyone like Danial doing so even if they don't take one red cent for donations.

However people can vote with their wallets and buy other brands.

I hope these enhanced functional drivers make to to a server in a nation that doesn't have to worry about any legal actions from Creative

Edit: looks like Creative might be charging money for Vista functionality.
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=1726

I dont disagree that ANY vendor is within their rights to refuse to write drivers for the next OS. At some point legacy needs to be retired, what I DO object to, is a vendor crippling drivers to FORCE an upgrade.

Suing anyone who release a driver modification to (re)enable a function of a card while legal is probably one of the worst PR moves a company can make.

 

[maxfly]

I'm getting a message not found error, but I did manage to see it before it was deleted.

same here,anyone happen to copy the apology?

 

[AlabamaCajun]

Check out the link on Wired, creative got it's n*ts tied in a not on this one by the Wired comm.
I realize the letter is the same as the link by the OP and others but I just wanted to reader responses on Wired.

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/04/daniel_k-who-fi.html

 

[aaronjb]

As someone said elsewhere, Creative Labs is and always has been a marketing/rebranding company. They have few engineers on staff, and their entire business is based around planned obsolescence.

After purchasing a new X-fi and dealing with pre-Alpha quality drivers for nearly a year, I've decided to look elsewhere for my next sound card. That, and finding out the CL simply disabled Audigy features in software under Vista, is the last straw.

Well, that, and the price gouging, proprietary jacks, incompatibility with their own speaker offerings, poor support...

 

[theELVISCERATOR]

I will def avoid creative in the future...and have had numerous problems sometimes fixable sometimes not with all of my creative cards...

 

[MadMan007]

It's funny how Creative has done some good fixes relatively fast for Auzentech when they've requested it and yet never bothered for their own card sales. I wonder if they're contractually obligated or just paid per time for that? In any case it shows that even Creative itself could do this stuff right they just don't bother, I guess they only care about the hardware sale.

 

[ScottinIndy]

What a P.R. nightmare for Creative, When the PR genius at Creative posted his scare tactics post, Daniel should have just posted a spreadsheet tracking his time spent fixing Creatives P.O.S. drivers and requested financial reimbursement.
I actually like my X-fi extreme card, Of course I'm using it on XP 32bit, I do think I will look elsewhere when I purchase my next soundcard.

 

[eggyhustles]

I think creative is only mad at the fact that he is taking donations..i wouldn't like it either if someone modded something in my product and was accepting money for it..while creative was terrible to disable drivers so they wouldn't work in vista he shouldn't be accepting money..

 

[AlabamaCajun]

I think creative is only mad at the fact that he is taking donations..i wouldn't like it either if someone modded something in my product and was accepting money for it..while creative was terrible to disable drivers so they wouldn't work in vista he shouldn't be accepting money..

So covering your expenses is ... er..wrong

-----

After looking at this thread, reminds me of HP "Planned Obsolescence". They sell ink so who cares about XP64 drivers. The last Creative board I had was a pain 512PCI was donated to Goodwill along with 4-5 HP printers.

 

[vixro]

I agree with Creative's side. Hacking the drivers to work with other products IS stealing. Making them work how they are intended by fixing creative's problems is perfectly ok with me. Asking for donations is also not OK.



Covering your expenses for stealing IS wrong. He was using creative's driver, that creative made and has a license to, on hardware it wasn't intended to work with that Creative doesn't get money for.

 

[burningcpu]

Um, creative is mad because he is messing up their artificial obscolescence plan, calling him out for taking donations was just a ploy to get people on their side. And from what I've seen it is working pretty well.
Legal or not, Creative's management looks really shady after pulling this stunt. It will be at the front of my mind the next time I purchase a sound card or mp3 player.

 

[dealmaster]

I've finally had it with the constant BSODs I was getting in Vista with my Audigy 2 ZS. I thought it was an unstable overclock until I realized that every time the computer crashed, it was accompanied with very strange noises. Yanked that crappy card out of there and the BSODs stopped. This combined with them intentionally breaking many features of the card in Vista, then attempting to CHARGE me to get those features back, and seeing that as OK is the last straw in my mind.

Never Creative, never again.

That and their purposeful incompatibilities with front panel connectors ****es me off as well. I have headphone ports up front, I'd like to use them!

While Daniel shouldn't have solicited donations, as has been pointed out, he was trying to fix a really dirty situation caused by a nasty company screwing over their customers.

 

[Aktunka]

Unfortunately, it is Creative's hardware and software and they are the ones to determine how they choose to support or not to support their products. Same as if anyone else here is running their own business it is all your choice for how you run it.

For me, this is just validation for why I stopped buying Creative products. The last card I purchased was an Audigy 2 after my SB Live stopped working right and that had been purchased after my previous card had stopped working right due to driver issues. For about the past year and a half I have been using on board sound with very little noticeable difference from the Creative cards, but there was some there. I had been looking for a new sound card about 2 days before this thread was posted and this helped me make the determination that I do not need to waste the money on another Creative card. Then at Woot they had a Razer 7.1 card come up for about a third of the normal price at Newegg so I had to make that jump. Here is hoping for the best.

Anyhow, whether we all agree with Creative or not on this issue doesn't really matter. We need to speak with our wallets to make a difference. If you like Creative and how they have handled this, continue to buy their products. If you don't like it, don't buy from them. If they see a big enough drop then they will notice it, but not otherwise.