Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:WTF (Score 1) 836

Lawyers should be barred from using any and all phrases that mean something different in the court than they do in normal speech.

And wording such a ban so that it cannot be gamed, loopholed, or turned on its ass - without using legalese - would be an interesting exercise.

Comment Re:WTF (Score 3, Funny) 836

Legal issues are very black and white, very binary. If the criterion is "all", and "all" is invalidated - even by one exception - then the whole proposition is out. "Any" by itself leaves "all" as optional. "All that apply" is what "any and all" means in legalese, except that "that apply" is not left to your own interpretation, but instead means something like "all that are not barred by superseding legal restrictions or obligations". They could use that phrase, but using "any and all", which phrases it as a positive obligation, instead shifts the burden on you to prove that something is barred, instead of them to prove that something isn't. All of this hyper-parsed language is, of course, just a substitute for honest communication. It is, in fact, intended to avoid communication and understanding, while at the same time locking in the consequences as tightly as possible.

BTW, IANAL, and I am making this all up as I go along. I bet its pretty close to correct. Of course, any and all of it could be flat out wrong.

Comment Re:WTF (Score 1) 836

OK, now take that back into context with this agreement. "Please list any and all sites" has no additional meaning than "Please list all sites", right? This isn't a declaration of fact, it's a request.

Its a demand to be complied with. Lets say you have ten accounts, but one of them carries some legal prohibition on revealing it (setting aside the larger problems with the whole idea, we're being fine-print pedantic here...). If you can show that you are not required to provide that one account, "list all..." by itself means that you can now list none and be in full compliance. "Any and all" means that you still have to list the other nine. In other words, it is the legal way of saying don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, just in case the demand for "all" becomes invalidated.

Comment Re:WTF (Score 3, Informative) 836

What does the phrase "any and all" add that the word "all" lacks by itself?

"All your base are belong to us" legally implies that if even one base is found to not belong to us, then it is possible that none of them do - the statement is false in its entirety. "Any and all of your base belong to us" means that if we accidentally let one of your bases slip through our fingers, the remainder still belong to us. To a lawyer, internet memes are full of loopholes and thus not binding.

Comment It's no good unless you pay for it. (Score 1) 256

by decomposing things to be simpler, you don't need open source.

Let's see.... you could meet a beautiful girl and fall madly in love and have sex for free for the rest of your life...

Or... you could meet Ray the Pimp and pay $50 bucks for a night with his "best" girl, Grizelda. She even has most of her teeth!

And then you find out at the last minute that she'll sell you condoms for $200 each. No, the one in your wallet is not "compatible".

Slashdot Top Deals

I've noticed several design suggestions in your code.

Working...