Creative Labs has released a proprietary driver base for their XFi cards. I downloaded it because it claims to have compatibility with alsa. In fact, it requires alsa include files to be able to compile. I haven't looked at the source yet (this information is all in the Readme.txt in the main download) and probably won't (especially since I don't own a Creative Labs XFi card).
What I don't understand, is are they allowed to use our code to build their drivers? They use alsa core modules to interoperate (from what I can tell in the Readme.txt). Also, this line in the License.txt is especially troubling:
In the event that the Software includes Linux code or drivers, then, unless expressly stated to the contrary, such Linux code and drivers are proprietary to Creative and all rights therein are reserved.
I'm deleting all but the big tarball I downloaded. I'll delete it later.