Or there is something missing from this passage:
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One of the drawbacks of the CGI version of PHP is its inability to use PHP-based authentication. Besides the overall performance hit, this would be the other glaring drawback. There's nothing, however, stopping you from using your normal Web server-based authentication; they're mutually exclusive.
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EDIT Aksherly, all I was thinking was that mebbe they meant to srtick a "not" in front of "mutually exclusive."
you found the translation to this!
Equy ulaf I an over ice
Aof mi I of tica xim ekovo fer uvuje falu
El omoxef of a uzuru nex of iw isi doguv ike maleca I wa. Ulofon the a of uzesas I oh ijahu cokeha I bipi lebiru a par ayokib the ukuse ve. Uvojem ujoraq ulu lehih I the it opex on ajis un. Ijifa qu gopequ waqu a of jo zuke culob ize nowu nihosi a hekiza somec egoy. Obel a us okuru the muco fup ilud oboji the I texem a arubez axica tuviki a pizu. Ivulo I zareva of hey ip the eberu dog I uleric opiw ugege zibu fas im ukeyib ew eru. Evulani jo ruye cusema the I fuzumi qu the qur abemiw azer a oqu koroz. Il ij ibuf iwi wopa jo jij icivem ubupo taq ulegol iquv ifa. Enefi zequf esa a xilu I su tipi a xe dijub ujo piro gihul I onozo the fodu gah uviw. Ite zigacu pu xavu cu a muredu nite xubih a eguyih. 
It's geek-speek for "we screwed up". Take an aspirin and lie down. The symptoms will pass soon, and the passage you quoted will seem that much better. If no more logical ...
It won't work anyway, it's a computer. Doesn't matter what the documentation says.
Or there is something missing from this passage:
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One of the drawbacks of the CGI version of PHP is its inability to use PHP-based authentication. Besides the overall performance hit, this would be the other glaring drawback. There's nothing, however, stopping you from using your normal Web server-based authentication; they're mutually exclusive.
Umm, she said carefully, I don't think there is. Given that I understand nothing about CGI and PHP, don't hold me to this, but: I think it's saying that CGI can't use PHP authorization, and therefore if you are required to get PHP authorization, then CGI will be no good for you. However, if your normal Web server-based authentication is acceptable, then CGI should/would be able to obtain this, since, if they are mutually exclusive, whatever it is about PHP that's preventing the authorization doesn't hold true for your regular server.
Woops--ignorance showing again. Should have put authentication, not authorization.
Thanks, Jackie. I think I was able to follow that, and if I did so, what you said both made sense, and validated the absence of the "not" I was expecting. To quote one of the clearest thinkers I know, you are "one of the least benightedly unintelligent life forms it has been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting."
"That young girl is one of the least benightedly unintelligent organic life forms it has been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting."
~ Marvin, the depressed android, concerning Tricia Maximillian (Trillian) in Douglas Adams', Life, The Universe, And Everything, the third book in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
When I saw all five volumes on my wife's bookshelf, while we were first dating, I knew that I had found the right woman with whom to share life.
What is a performance hit? I would have thought it was a good thing, but the context seems to imply otherwise.
"There's nothing, however, stopping you from using your normal Web server-based authentication; they're mutually exclusive."
In my present state of ignorance I would take this to mean that because the CGI version does not allow use of PHP authentication, it is possible to use the Web-server based authentication. If the CGI version did allow use of PHP authentication, one would run into serious problems if one tried to use the Web-server based authenticaion.
Bingley
From my favourite PHP website:
Prerequisites
The $PHP_AUTH_USER, $PHP_AUTH_PW and $PHP_AUTH_TYPE global variables are only available when PHP is installed as a module. If you're using the CGI version of PHP, you will be limited to Web server-based authentication or other custom types of authentication (such as using HTML forms) to match passwords in a database.
In other words, the CGI version of PHP doesn't allow PHP authentication which, given the limitations of CGI, makes some kind of weird sense!
You underestimate the depths of my ignorance. I have no idea what CGI or PHP might be. I have a vague idea PHP is some sort of drug -- popularly known as angel dust? -- but that doesn't seem to fit the context.
Bingley
"That young girl is one of the least benightedly unintelligent organic life forms it has been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting."
I couldn't fail to disagree with you less.
All seriousness aside, I think the original sentence Max was worried about could use some sort of emphasis.
… they're mutually exclusive
Maybe:
… they *are mutually exclusive if in fact they are. The original looks too much like it *could be a missing word.
overall performance hit 
This is bad sentence construction. [rap rap]
And yes, max, I think they forgot a not
for the fun quotes in the posts above
PS: is it only me or do all of you struggle to write a post after a longish hibernation. I seem to be barking out sentences,..[scratching head e]
Displaying the humility one would expect from a fine and upstanding cleric, the padre chose not to mention that Marvin, the permanently depressed android, was brought to life by the vocal talents of one Stephen Moore.
Well, keep on trying, maahey; I'm sure your dogged determination will see you through...
>One of the drawbacks of the CGI version of PHP is its inability to use PHP-based authentication. Besides the overall performance hit, this would be the other glaring drawback. There's nothing, however, stopping you from using your normal Web server-based authentication; they're mutually exclusive.
This is the sort of stuff I used to earn pretty good money translating (well, not this exactly, but I have a pretty good "ear" for this stuff and with just a few questions asked of the idiot who perpetrated it, I could usually translate into something normal people can understand.
I think what this says is:
There are two types of PHP. Avoid, if you can, the CGI type because your computer won't perform at optimum. Even if you do have the CGI type, it won't prevent you from using your normal authentication routines, since they don't interfere with one another.
Thanks, Ted. As it happens, i probably will be installing the CGI version of PHP, but only because it's said to easier to do so on Windows boxes, and because I'll only be installing it for testing purposes, to be able to check the php I write without having to ftp it to the server every time. I will have to chcek with my hosts to see which version of PHP is installed on their servers, though.
Just to reiterate, the CGI version of PHP DOES NOT HAVE ANY INTERNAL AUTHENTICATION ROUTINES. Or at least, it didn't used to. It relies on normal HTML authentication. It's a limitation of CGI. Therefore, awkward English and all, the original passage Max quoted is correct as it stands.
- Deke (the ultra) Mantle