Comment by ethin
3 days ago
It isn't really reasonable though. The word "may" implies possibility, not absolutism. So reading the sentence logically, at least to me, saying that I "may be" able to license it under the AGPL means that I might or might not be able to do that... And I have no way of knowing if I can or can't unless I... What, contact them?
I think in this case it implies choice for the user. There’s an implied “if you want to”. You may use this software if you want to in one of two ways:
That’s pretty clear to me (a native speaker from the UK) - i can’t really see how else it could be interpreted. As another poster said, it’s the same “may” as “you may go to the washroom” or “you may enter now” - which implies consent from the speaker.
Except it's passive voice here; the conditions modify the grantor, not the reader. You may be licensed if we feel like it to use source code to create compiled versions etc.
No "you may enter now" but "you may be allowed to enter."