We’re going to try to think like Creative here. Let’s say we, as Creative, insist that our drivers for our multimedia cards were Vista-ready. Let’s say they really weren’t, they were buggy drivers with missing features. Let’s say we had no real plans to fix this. We’re a large corporation with better things to do.
So let’s say a talented, independent developer takes it on himself to patch the buggy drivers to make things all work well in Vista. Let’s say he even posts links to these patched drivers, which he’s giving away to our customers for free, in our support forum.
This happened. And Creative, instead of certifying his drivers and rewarding him for his hard work in making our customers happy, has banned him — and other users — from the forums and took down the links to the superior drivers.
That’s just bad customer service.
You forgot to mention that he was apparently asking for donations for the drivers, which in effect means he was profiting off the intellectual property that Creative owned. He’s not standing on very firm legal ground there.
But of course, Creative should have just let him be, since they don’t seem to be able to fix their Vista drivers.
Creative sucks. I hate their products.
I always have to hunt around for drivers since their support web site intentionally makes it as hard as possible to find what you need.
Kudos to Daniel. Though, he does violate the EULA whether or not he seeks donations or otherwise.
I doubt creative gives a rat’s ass though – where the heck else are people gong to go.
http://digg.com/hardware/Creative_s_fall_from_glory_Consumers_fighting_back is the most Dugg on this so far! Check it out ;)