Daniel_K Speaks Out

[Capper]

Daniel_K, the Creative Labs fan who fixed the company's broken Vista sound card drivers only to be threatened by the corporate brass, just e-mailed with his side of the story.
"My name is Daniel Kawakami and I'm Brazilian," he writes. "I'm NOT a cracker, a hacker, just an enthusiast modder with basic assembly knowledge and very persistent."
Kawakami's expertise allowed him to enable advanced features in sound cards that Creative advertised as Vista-compatible, but which did not perform as well under that operating system as they do under Windows XP. After tolerating the distribution of his unofficial drivers for a time, Creative's vice president of corporate communications, Phil O'Shaughnessy, ultimately asked him to stop, and accused him of "stealing their goods." O'Shaughnessy also wrote that whether or not it cripples its Vista drivers is a "business decision that only we have the right to make."

Read the entire email here:
Daniel_K, Who Fixed Creative's Broken Vista Drivers, Speaks Out

[qazwsx]

pffff, Ive lost respect for Creative as a company over this. why should they make such a big deal of it? if anything its heping business not stealing it. I see stealing businesss as making money while they lose out, which isnt what happened!
Also, why should creative make such a fuss, you dont get ATi or Nvidia publicly attacking omegadrivers.

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by qazwsx

pffff, Ive lost respect for Creative as a company over this. why should they make such a big deal of it? if anything its heping business not stealing it. I see stealing businesss as making money while they lose out, which isnt what happened!
Also, why should creative make such a fuss, you dont get ATi or Nvidia publicly attacking omegadrivers.

Eh, ATI didn't whine about many softmods during the Radeon 9XXX series. They didn't whine about X800 mods either.
Really, Creative knows that they're in hot water. Financial problems, better onboard, many quality alternatives, they just can't make it anymore. I guess they thought crippling many of their lines was the solution.

[RangerXLT8]

Yep the gap between X-fi and high-end onboard is closing... Creative should put this guy on their payroll instead of publicly smearing him.

[screwballl]

good to see him speak out and be very level headed about it all... hopefully he will continue and release some updates to the current drivers... if anything this has allowed his work to be spread much farther, end up in the publics eye and cause Creative to lose more sales.

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by RangerXLT8

Creative should put this guy on their payroll instead of publicly smearing him.

That's what I was thinking too! Damn Creative...

[halutzparilla]

what is the competitors or Creative??? makes me itch to support their competitors....

[screwballl]

Originally Posted by halutzparilla

what is the competitors or Creative??? makes me itch to support their competitors....

look for sound cards on newegg... anything that does not have the creative logo is pretty much a competitor... I know Asus has one out that is doing pretty well.

[polobunny]

Yeah the Asus Xonar is a pretty popular sound card lately. Looks awesome too, haha.

[gvblake22]

Auzentech, M-Audio, and Bgears are all other high-end sound card manufacturers (in addition to Asus).