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Here's another fun US Supreme Court decision in a similar vein: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/canceling-the-word-shall-in-leases-3494337/ https://www.jdsup

Here's another fun US Supreme Court decision in a similar vein: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/canceling-the-word-shall-in-leases-3494337/ https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/canceling-the-word-shall-i... >In 1995, for instance, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in Gutierrez de Martinez v. Lamagno that under certain contexts, shall could be construed as may. The decision does not imply that shall always means may, but rather that unless expressly defined, context determines whether shall is mandatory or precatory. [...] Congress also issued the Plain Writing Act of 2010 (the Act), which required all federal agencies to follow the federal plain language guidelines and use must instead of shall when imposing requirements.

0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
Makes sense to me. Which puts me against RFC 2119 [0] where must and shall are equal. > 1. MUST This word, or the terms "REQUIRED" or "SHALL", mean that the definition is an absolute requirement of the specification. [0] https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Someone 3y ago
  > Which puts me against RFC 2119 [0] where must and shall are equal. No, it doesn’t. The SC said “unless expressly defined”, and the RFC expressly defines it.
  - RheingoldRiver 3y ago
    Yeah but like...why bother? Use the more obvious term always & there's no need for ambiguity. If you're saying "these things mean the same thing" in a formal context then there should be a REALLY good reason why you need both of them to exist, period. Otherwise remove one and simplify what people need to know.
    - uxp8u61q 3y ago
      I get the feeling that many RFCs are written by programmers who want to cosplay as lawyers. There's no reason for a technical spec to be written like a legal contract with archaic formulations. There's also no reason for legal contracts or laws to be written with archaic formulations, but common law countries have a fetish for this kind of thing.
      - PhilipRoman 3y ago
        For understanding what the protocol is meant to do - I agree. But in my experience when actually implementing standards spanning thousands of pages, the strict language has been a lifesaver.
      - reichstein 3y ago
        There is every reason for a technical specification to be unambiguous. That's it's one job. Behavior must be clearly within spec or not, otherwise it hurts interoperability. Implementations should support the entire spec, and not produce something outside of spec, then every implementation can interact with every other implementation. If the implementers can't agree what's within spec and what's not, it's a bug in the spec. Law has a similar requirement, only slightly looser because it has a fallback of getting a human judge to decide in case of disagreement. Still, ambiguity in a law is a bug. In both cases, you do use natural language, which can rely on context, so the real test is, or should be, whether a "reasonable person" would choose a different interpretation, not whether one is technically possible.
      - bumby 3y ago
        Just to piggyback on the good comments already mentioned, there is often a need for a "technical spec to be written like a legal contract" because legal contracts often reference technical specs. Anyone who's worked a contract that has ambiguous technical specs knows it often becomes fodder for rules-lawyering. One example from my past was a contract that levied specific requirements for equipment operated autonomously with software, but "autonomous" wasn't explicitly defined. A contractor who didn't want to spend the money to meet the extra requirements argued the system couldn't be considered autonomous because it required a human to turn it on (despite being fully autonomous after that point).
alanbernstein 3y ago
So shall may mean may, while may shall mean may?
- qingcharles 3y ago
  Shall almost always means may. And may always means may.
qingcharles 3y ago
In Illinois shall means shall only if there is a punishment attached. So, if a law says "A peace officer shall not shoot innocent unarmed minorities" but fails to specify any punishment for non-compliance then it is merely "directory" and nothing will come of any violation of that law. For instance all the laws regarding how jails should be run (e.g. prisoners shall be fed) are all directory, not mandatory because there is no punishment for failure. https://www.isba.org/committees/governmentlawyers/newsletter/2015/06/whentermshalldirectoryillinoissup https://www.isba.org/committees/governmentlawyers/newsletter...
- brutusborn 3y ago
  Would feeding prisoners be legally required since not doing so would be “cruel or unusual punishment?”
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    Cruel or unusual punishment is a standard that only applies to convicted prisoners, and not those in county jails, which come under due process. Generally though, yes, you are right it becomes a constitutional violation, rather than a statutory violation if you don't feed the prisoners. Often though the statues give rights above and beyond the constitution. For instance, in Illinois it requires jails to give prisoners 1800 calories a day. But it is not enforceable. So they can give a lot less as long as they don't kill you. And IIRC the statute also demands "The menu shall be diversified so as to avoid the monotony of a standardized diet." which again is not enforceable. So they can basically just feed you Nutriloaf once a day and call it job done. https://ilga.gov/commission/jcar/admincode/020/020007010001100R.html https://ilga.gov/commission/jcar/admincode/020/0200070100011... It's funny because the first line includes a bug in it. It says a minimum of "1800 to 2000 calories." Well, which is it? (also, just a thought, but there are generally no punishments for violating a person's constitutional rights -- you can sue for your injuries, but prisoners specifically are severely restricted by Congress on bringing suits against their captors because there were too many, and those suits can only allege physical harm, not any kind of mental or emotional suffering)

0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago

Makes sense to me. Which puts me against RFC 2119 [0] where must and shall are equal. > 1. MUST This word, or the terms "REQUIRED" or "SHALL", mean that the definition is an absolute requirement of the specification. [0] https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Someone 3y ago
> Which puts me against RFC 2119 [0] where must and shall are equal. No, it doesn’t. The SC said “unless expressly defined”, and the RFC expressly defines it.
- RheingoldRiver 3y ago
  Yeah but like...why bother? Use the more obvious term always & there's no need for ambiguity. If you're saying "these things mean the same thing" in a formal context then there should be a REALLY good reason why you need both of them to exist, period. Otherwise remove one and simplify what people need to know.
  - uxp8u61q 3y ago
    I get the feeling that many RFCs are written by programmers who want to cosplay as lawyers. There's no reason for a technical spec to be written like a legal contract with archaic formulations. There's also no reason for legal contracts or laws to be written with archaic formulations, but common law countries have a fetish for this kind of thing.
    - PhilipRoman 3y ago
      For understanding what the protocol is meant to do - I agree. But in my experience when actually implementing standards spanning thousands of pages, the strict language has been a lifesaver.
    - reichstein 3y ago
      There is every reason for a technical specification to be unambiguous. That's it's one job. Behavior must be clearly within spec or not, otherwise it hurts interoperability. Implementations should support the entire spec, and not produce something outside of spec, then every implementation can interact with every other implementation. If the implementers can't agree what's within spec and what's not, it's a bug in the spec. Law has a similar requirement, only slightly looser because it has a fallback of getting a human judge to decide in case of disagreement. Still, ambiguity in a law is a bug. In both cases, you do use natural language, which can rely on context, so the real test is, or should be, whether a "reasonable person" would choose a different interpretation, not whether one is technically possible.
    - bumby 3y ago
      Just to piggyback on the good comments already mentioned, there is often a need for a "technical spec to be written like a legal contract" because legal contracts often reference technical specs. Anyone who's worked a contract that has ambiguous technical specs knows it often becomes fodder for rules-lawyering. One example from my past was a contract that levied specific requirements for equipment operated autonomously with software, but "autonomous" wasn't explicitly defined. A contractor who didn't want to spend the money to meet the extra requirements argued the system couldn't be considered autonomous because it required a human to turn it on (despite being fully autonomous after that point).

alanbernstein 3y ago

So shall may mean may, while may shall mean may?

qingcharles 3y ago
Shall almost always means may. And may always means may.

qingcharles 3y ago

In Illinois shall means shall only if there is a punishment attached. So, if a law says "A peace officer shall not shoot innocent unarmed minorities" but fails to specify any punishment for non-compliance then it is merely "directory" and nothing will come of any violation of that law. For instance all the laws regarding how jails should be run (e.g. prisoners shall be fed) are all directory, not mandatory because there is no punishment for failure. https://www.isba.org/committees/governmentlawyers/newsletter/2015/06/whentermshalldirectoryillinoissup https://www.isba.org/committees/governmentlawyers/newsletter...

brutusborn 3y ago
Would feeding prisoners be legally required since not doing so would be “cruel or unusual punishment?”
- qingcharles 3y ago
  Cruel or unusual punishment is a standard that only applies to convicted prisoners, and not those in county jails, which come under due process. Generally though, yes, you are right it becomes a constitutional violation, rather than a statutory violation if you don't feed the prisoners. Often though the statues give rights above and beyond the constitution. For instance, in Illinois it requires jails to give prisoners 1800 calories a day. But it is not enforceable. So they can give a lot less as long as they don't kill you. And IIRC the statute also demands "The menu shall be diversified so as to avoid the monotony of a standardized diet." which again is not enforceable. So they can basically just feed you Nutriloaf once a day and call it job done. https://ilga.gov/commission/jcar/admincode/020/020007010001100R.html https://ilga.gov/commission/jcar/admincode/020/0200070100011... It's funny because the first line includes a bug in it. It says a minimum of "1800 to 2000 calories." Well, which is it? (also, just a thought, but there are generally no punishments for violating a person's constitutional rights -- you can sue for your injuries, but prisoners specifically are severely restricted by Congress on bringing suits against their captors because there were too many, and those suits can only allege physical harm, not any kind of mental or emotional suffering)