From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Change in rmail-insert-mime-forwarded-message Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2013 15:44:42 +0900 Message-ID: <87mww04cv9.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> References: <87mwwja6g1.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <878v7k20xy.fsf@foil.strangled.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1358923496 13491 80.91.229.3 (23 Jan 2013 06:44:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2013 06:44:56 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: mdl@alum.mit.edu Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Jan 23 07:45:15 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Txu5C-0000iX-HC for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 23 Jan 2013 07:45:14 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:34707 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Txu4v-0001Vx-Ax for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 23 Jan 2013 01:44:57 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:39426) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Txu4r-0001Ve-LS for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 23 Jan 2013 01:44:56 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Txu4q-0008Oq-57 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 23 Jan 2013 01:44:53 -0500 Original-Received: from mgmt2.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ([130.158.97.224]:41519) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Txu4p-0008N5-L1 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 23 Jan 2013 01:44:52 -0500 Original-Received: from uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp [130.158.99.156]) by mgmt2.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix) with ESMTP id 415109707AA; Wed, 23 Jan 2013 15:44:43 +0900 (JST) Original-Received: by uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 079AD1A3654; Wed, 23 Jan 2013 15:44:42 +0900 (JST) In-Reply-To: <878v7k20xy.fsf@foil.strangled.net> X-Mailer: VM undefined under 21.5 (beta32) "habanero" b0d40183ac79 XEmacs Lucid (x86_64-unknown-linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6.x X-Received-From: 130.158.97.224 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:156595 Archived-At: Mark Lillibridge writes: > Yes, Rmail cannot prevent/fix damage that has already been incurred > due to broken mail distribution agents. Hopefully, in the future we can > get those broken mail distribution agents fixed so they use mboxrd and > do not cause damage. That's not good enough. You also have to fix all of the ancient mbox files that people have lying around. Not going to happen. > You would like Rmail to additionally damage the message again in the > hopes that the two damages cancel out? You asked Rmail to send the > message: No, I would like an MUA to ignore From-stuffing entirely (ie, treat ">" as just a character when it appears in the message body, no matter what the context) when copying to and from mbox files. It might be nice if the MUA would beautify the *display* of mail being read (but not composed!) by suppressing one ">" when followed by "From" in a context where it seems that there is an extra ">". I've got better things to do that try to write such code, though. In composition, the user can "fix" it if they think those are the appropriate semantics. Why not let them? > Note that the ">" before the From is not part of the message per > the mbox format rules; sending it would be corrupting the message. There is no standard for "mbox formatting rules", just a wide variety of practices that are very similar but not identical.[1] If the MDA does From-stuffing, the ">" might be part of the format, or it might be part of the message -- it depends on what came in over the wire, and you don't have normally access to that. If the MDA doesn't do From- stuffing, it's part of the message. Both are correct, according to their own designs. You don't have to like those designs, but the MDAs are conforming to the specs they were written to. "When faced with ambiguity, refuse to guess." Why-yes-I'm-unambiguously-a-Tim-Peters-fan-ly y'rs, Footnotes: [1] http://www.jwz.org/doc/content-length.html. Sadly enough, nothing has much changed since then, except the proliferation of sites that don't use the mbox format. Nevertheless, there are still plenty of sites that do, especially those based on free OSes where Emacs is likely to be the platform of choice for at least some users. And they have some *very* old mbox files....