Permission is hereby granted to all parties to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document provided that the copy of the license document remains completely unaltered.
Is "to all parties to" correct? How can I phrase it instead?
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2It's fine. I'm pleased to see that you recognise the second "to" as an infinitival marker (not a preposition) and not part of the verbs, which are just "copy" and "distribute".– BillJSep 24 at 9:23
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verbatim = "completely unaltered" (with respect to the wording) so you could eliminate the proviso clause, unless by "copy" you mean "photocopy" and are expecting fonts and font-stylings (bold, italics, font-sizes) to remain intact as well.– TimR on some deviceSep 24 at 11:14
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@TimR In a linguistic sense I would completely agree with you but legal language demands you to be explicit– AnmSep 24 at 12:06
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verbatim has a precise meaning. "unaltered", on the other hand, is vague especially when it comes to a "copy" -- whatever that might mean nowadays: electronic form in plain text? photocopy of the original? And in fact, adding that proviso suggests that "unaltered" means something other than or in addition to "verbatim". What other kinds of alterations are meant to be excluded? Could the license be distributed in a tiny font, or in a pale gray font against a pale gray background, as websites sometimes do with Terms of Service, to make them virtually illegible?– TimR on some deviceSep 24 at 12:24
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@TimR I see your point, I have opted to remove "verbatim" since I would like to keep the more legal suited clause as so: "Permission is hereby granted to all parties to copy and distribute copies of this license document provided that the contents of the copy of the license document remains completely unaltered without exception in any and all circumstances." (Redundancy is intentional) By "copy" I mean a digital "copy". I have included "contents of the copy of the..." to mitigate your last point– AnmSep 24 at 12:37
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1 Answer
In 'permission is granted to all parties to copy...', the first 'to' is a necessary preposition after the verb 'granted'; the second is a necessary part of the infinitive of the verb 'to copy'. You need both, the phrasing is correct, and does not need to be altered.
answered Sep 24 at 8:15
