Why do software licenses use passive voice?
<p>I've been researching user-readable software licenses, and it strikes me that even as they get simpler and cut words, they always start with a wordy passive-voice construction:</p>

<p>MIT: <code>Permission is hereby granted ... to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software")</code></p>

<p>ISC: <code>Permission ... is hereby granted</code></p>

<p>BSD: <code>Redistribution ... are permitted</code></p>

<p>Zlib: <code>Permission is granted to anyone</code></p>

<p>Why do the licenses use this same sort of wording even as they simplify in other places? Is there a legal advantage to using it in favor of the more obvious <em>you may</em>?</p>

<h3>Primary Theory</h3>

<p>I suspect there might not be a legal answer to this question.</p>

<p>I have always suspected a sort of <strong><em>pseudo-intellectual elitism</em></strong> (or simple <strong><em>preference</em></strong> or <strong><em>carelessness</em></strong>) with passive voice sentence construction in general. I sense license writers have not (yet) escaped this general trend.</p>

<p>I would love someone to prove this theory incorrect. But, alas, I doubt it will happen.</p>

<h3>Alternative Theory</h3>

<p>But because this is a Law Q&amp;A site, I will advance the following alternative theory. I don't believe it's correct. But I will advance it because it's the only possible explanation I can think of that might be even remotely based on legal reasoning...</p>

<p>Maybe they are just basing their construction on the way the law itself is written? For example, if the law says, "Permission must be granted..." Then it would follow that a writer who wants to comply with the law might choose, "Permission is hereby granted..." instead of something like "The authors hereby grant permission..." or, as the OP suggested, "You may..."</p>

licensing