NR 4.1.4 ragged bottom and vertical spacing

[Federico Bruni]

Hi all

Can you please explain this paragraph taken from here?
http://www.lilypond.org/doc/v2.19/Documentation/notation/flexible-vertical-spacing-paper-variables

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If a page has a ragged bottom, the resulting distance is the largest of:

   basic-distance,
   minimum-distance, and
   padding plus the smallest distance necessary to eliminate collisions
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Does it mean that it will take the largest value between those three?

I read the french translation to see how it was interpreted and it 
seems to suggest that the distance is the _sum_ of the three values (if 
I understand correctly.. my french is very basic). But then I don't 
uderstand why using "largest"...

Thanks
Federico