Charles Plessy <ple...@debian.org> writes: > being a non-native speaker, I sometimes make the error of > understanding “may not” as “it is allowed to (one may) not do”, while > it rather means “must not”. Like for instance in the recent discussion > about dashes in version numbers on debian-mentors.
There is a difference in nuance between “may not” versus “must not”. The former is simply the negation of “may”, and I think on that basis it's the correct form to use. That way, it makes a clear triplet of “may not” (not permitted), “may” (permitted), and “must” (mandatory). > Would you welcome a patch to the Policy replacing “may not” and “shall > not” (one occurrence) by “must not”, skipping of course false > positives like “dependencies may not be available” ? I agree the “shall not” isn't usefully different from “may not”. I'd like to standardise on “may not” for that. -- \ “But Marge, what if we chose the wrong religion? Each week we | `\ just make God madder and madder.” —Homer, _The Simpsons_ | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/871uu0k8ie....@benfinney.id.au
