<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<p>"Shall" is a huge bugaboo of Bryan Garner, who's a bit of a legal
drafting guru (who some swear by and others think is all wet). He
did write a fairly influential book (with Antonin Scalia) on
interpreting legal texts, and also apparently was pals with, of
all people, David Foster Wallace. And for a time (maybe still)
edited Black's Law Dictionary.</p>
<p>I sort of agree with him on shall (it is potentially ambiguous
and I think a bit antiquated) but its one of those things that is
so ingrained in legal drafting that we'll likely never be rid of
it. And others find it valuable.<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/2/2024 10:48 AM, Aaron Williamson
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAAwXzKNX6Xi8Y+_J282zkU3SOc+obw+dxTeYQ4kQfsL3xPsMTQ@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Oct 2, 2024 at
7:48 AM Bruce Perens via License-discuss <<a
href="mailto:license-discuss@lists.opensource.org"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">license-discuss@lists.opensource.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="auto">The word "SHALL" must not be used in a
license. Please replace all occurrences of "SHALL" with
"MUST" and see <a
href="https://www.plainlanguage.gov/guidelines/conversational/shall-and-must/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.plainlanguage.gov/guidelines/conversational/shall-and-must/</a>
for the reasons you must do so.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div>I am assuming you are not a legal professional, I
think one would not have missed that issue by now.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
This may be an emerging best practice, but it's certainly not
ubiquitous practice amongst U.S. legal professionals. On the
contrary, my experience is that "shall" is still more commonly
used, regardless of the type of legal document in question.<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset class="moz-mime-attachment-header"></fieldset>
<pre wrap="" class="moz-quote-pre">_______________________________________________
The opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and not necessarily those of the Open Source Initiative. Official statements by the Open Source Initiative will be sent from an opensource.org email address.
License-discuss mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:License-discuss@lists.opensource.org">License-discuss@lists.opensource.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org">http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>