about: Debian Free Software Guidelines
The first item of the DFSG makes use of the terms "may not", where probably
"must not" would be more in the spirit.
This mixing up often occurs when german text is too directly
translated to english.
In german, "darf nicht" means: "is not allowed to" whereas
in english, "may not" is more like "is allowed to not ..."
conversely, the english "must not" is stronger than the german "muss nicht".
Why do I, a non-native english speaker, give hints about
using english ?
Because my english-teacher told us about this very frequently
made translation error (and I just happen to believe him).
Afterall, may be the page was indeed written by some
non-native speaker who might not have known about this.
Anyway, this severely affects the meaning of the whole paragraph,
so it should be worth the time making this clear and correct.
Feel free to reply to me, if my rambling is unclear, or if my
english teacher told me nonsense :-)
--
avl@logic.at (Andreas Leitgeb)
// Hereby i grant you my non-exclusive permission to share my opinions
// Du host de Ealaubnis, mei Meinung z'toeln, owa du host as ned allanich
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