Also, the original wording is not clear, IMHO. "On Debian GNU/Linux this file is a symbolic link pointing to /var/run. The contents of this file are regenerate

Also, the original wording is not clear, IMHO. "On Debian GNU/Linux this file is a symbolic link pointing to /var/run. The contents of this file are regenerated upon every system boot based on the contents of /etc/motd.tail." It should probably read: "On Debian GNU/Linux this file is usually a symbolic link pointing to /var/run. The contents of the file in /var/run are regenerated upon every system boot based on the contents of /etc/motd.tail." To make it clear that the programs that generate the contents target the file in /var/run, and do not operate directly on /etc/motd.