On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 2:04 PM, Demo Crazy <[email protected]> wrote:
> Dear Filipa
>
> please read my comments.
>
> I have a legal copy. I have not lost anything.
>
> I don't want sue Stata for my ilegal use of anything. I just don't find if right that they include in my legal copy something that is not documented.
>
Perhaps you should check out -man undocumented- and -man prdocumented-.
Its not unusual for software to have undocumented features, the first
I heard about was the "Easter Egg" (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_egg_%28media%29) of a flight
simulator hidden within Excel (see
http://vsbabu.org/software/fsxls.html)!!! In fact according to the
Wikipedia article M$ is riddled with them!!
Besides which as I wrote, its perfectly documented in the sense that
to install Stata and have it function as expected you need an official
license (serial number, code and authorisation key). Why are you so
surprised that when you haven't fulfilled these criteria things don't
work?
On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 2:02 PM, Demo Crazy <[email protected]> wrote:
> Of course, as you don't want it make sense, it does not make sense to you. Tautological.
No the logic of what you are putting forward does not make sense to
me, despite trying to understand the point you're trying to make.
> It is funny because my definition of malware is cut and paste from Wikipedia. Please read: ANY unwanted software.
The string "any unwanted software" does not appear in the article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware at all?
> Of course, most of the unwanted software is damaging but I am applying the terminology very well.
> If documented, it is not a problem, but if not... I have said this from the beginning.
As per above, software is full of undocumented commands and features,
often down to those coding it wanting to have a bit of fun. Good luck
discovering them _all_ and holding each and every company
accountable!!!
>
> I am perfectly aware about licenses issues and product activation, thank you.
> But again (as I said before several times), not any practice is valid: it is so simple
> to document it. You don't seem to want to understand my point.
>
If you're point is that you think _everything_ should be documented
then I refer you again to the above that _all_ software has
undocumented features and that this behavior is as would be expected
if an invalid license is used, since it _IS_ documented that a valid
license is required for Stata to function correctly!!
> I just wanted to make user knows about potential obscure, unwanted code in
> Stata. It seems that users are perfectly fine with that, so it is ok. This is not
> new: citenzens in many part of the free world are happy with their rights
> being restricted in order to improve security.
>
Getting a bit tenuous here. What OS are you using? If its and
Microsoft variant then your rights are restricted and you should check
out some Free Open Source Software such as GNU/Linux (which I have
used for a looong time).
Regards
Neil
--
"The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does
not ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from a given body
of data." ~ John Tukey (1986), "Sunset salvo". The American
Statistician 40(1).
Email - [email protected]
Website - http://slack.ser.man.ac.uk/
Photos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/slackline/
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
