[License-discuss] Request Discussion Pre-Reviews For New Licenses (chewkeanho-rlos, chewkeanho-cos, chewkeanho-gpos)

[McCoy Smith]

"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.

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.

On 10/2/2024 10:48 AM, Aaron Williamson wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 2, 2024 at 7:48 AM Bruce Perens via License-discuss 
> <license-discuss at lists.opensource.org> wrote:
>
>     The word "SHALL" must not be used in a license. Please replace all
>     occurrences of "SHALL" with "MUST" and see
>     https://www.plainlanguage.gov/guidelines/conversational/shall-and-must/
>     for the reasons you must do so.
>
>     I am assuming you are not a legal professional, I think one would
>     not have missed that issue by now.
>
>
> 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.
>
>
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