A message to Creative from the Linux and geek users commun

Question

Please pardon the possible misspellings/syntax errors in this post, as English is not my nati've language. I am still confident that you will grasp the essence of my message. Thank you.
I have been following the downfall of Creative in the last few days, and all I can say is : You had it coming. I am another customer who was decei'ved by buying one of your expensi've product. I spent 450$ on your X-Fi Elite pro, only to wait endlessly for stable vista drivers, which are still unstable and crippled. Yes, I know you had problems with how Microsoft changed completely its audio API a few months before launching, but the fact is that this is stuff that can happen, and you had to allocate more budget in order to develop drivers quickly to satisfy your customers. Instead, you just ignored us. And now you're paying for it.
It's kind of sad that your stock price is falling, but at the same time, it's about time the consumers could unite and get their revenge, and you are actually paying for laughing in our faces for so long. I have been waiting and waiting for a driver for Linux, since you would not provide stable drivers for Vista. Your website dedicated to open source drivers looks like it was coded in 995, with crappy graphics, just to show us that you don't care. And after waiting for over a year for drivers, you gave us a non-working driver, and you won't post any updates at all. ?
I shell out 450$ for an X-FI Elite Pro, and you laugh into my face, not once (with sub-par drivers for Vista and a long wait), but twice with your non-working Linux drivers ? I'm disgusted.
I wish your corporate people would understand what just happened, and listen to us, the geeky consumers, who buy, recommend, and install your products for themselves, customers, friends, and family. ? But I know that it does not work that way. Your marketing people, your legal department, your finance departement and all your corporate structure don't CARE about the end-user, but you have made a big mistake by ignoring us all these years. If you want to save your company, you really, really need to open up and develop a totally different relationship with your customer base. But knowing how this works, I'm sure that :?
. Nobody important in the company structure will take time to read this thread, hoping it will go away, and thinking that the new product lines will make us forget all of this;
2. You will not take this Public Relations Disaster seriously and think it will simply disapear
Well let me tell you what's gonna happen : Don't underestimate us, your customers. We will remember what happened in the past few days, but also how you treated us in the past few years. Unless you radically change your practices, and really show good faith, you are certainly going down. I, for one, am considering selling my X-Fi Elite Pro and rely only on onboard sound because at least the drivers work on all available platforms. But if you only knew how I wished to have decent support under Linux or Vista ! But you don't even talk with us, you provide crappy drivers and then forget us !? That's not the way to treat us !? So, unless you provide more than your little PR stunt of april st, where you don't even apologize and recognize your lack of support, I will never buy any of your products again, and I will tell everybody I know to stay away from your products.
Be aware : This is not a feeling that will go away in a few weeks/few months. I have been using Creative Cards since 996, and have always been a loyal customer, but I implore you to change, and to do it fast. I really hope you do.
Thank you for your time. ?

Answer 1

Thank you Igor, your article is very interesting indeed, and thanks for the other responses as well, it is really appreciated.
I recently tried OSS on Linux, which offers partial support for the X-FI, but with no success. I fear that without any proper documentation provided to ALSA, the complexity of the X-Fi hardware won't allow the development of acceptable drivers for Linux anytime soon. As for Creative development for Linux, well, just go and check out their support page : http://opensource.creative.com/soundcard.html.
It is beyond my comprehension as to why Creative simply refuses to document its hardware. I mean, I know about IP considerations and such, but the reality is that Creative has a very large part of the market for high-end audio products, and they do not have yet any serious competitors for the gaming/music enthusiast market who don't want to rely on onboard audio. (I know about M-Audio and a few others, but they mainly appeal to profesionals). So, to document their hardware for the open source community has more benefits than risks, since they don't have to pay for driver development, and since they almost sued daniel_K, I'm not afraid that their legal department would track anyone who would try to breach any IP rights by developing some hardware with the documentation they would release. So WHY ? WHY Creative, won't you release proper documentation? Why won't you help us help you ? Is it just by ideology ? That opening your code is bad ? Well, you're wrong. ?
But it may not be too late, should you *AT LEAST* provide us communication about what's going on at Creative regarding open source. Is it that hard for a Multinational Firm to hire a few developers to develop a driver for Linux ? Why won't you put up a blog for your developer, who can talk about what they're doing, what are the limitations, the hurdles, but at least show a little transparency and stop pretending you really care. ?