Gmail and mailing list (was Re: Regarding Linux kernel vs Android

[valdis.kletnieks at vt.edu]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2018 22:15:39 +0530, inventsekar said:

> PS - when I send mail to this DL, I thought I would receive my own
> mail(similar to Google groups DL), as I am already member of the DL, but I
> am not getting my own mail, so I get confusion whether my mail was sent or
> not. On the subscription page, I looked for any options, but no luck.
> Please suggest

The tl;dr: If you really care, you can have the list send you a "Your message was posted"
confirmation. Go here: https://lists.kernelnewbies.org/mailman/listinfo/kernelnewbies
and login (you'll need the password the list has for you - if you don't have it, it's
in the monthly reminder or you can ask it to send you a copy).

The gory details:

A long known issue with GMail.  Basically, what should happen is this:

1) You send e-mail. At some point, a Message-ID header gets added, usually by
the "Mail submission server". For the one I'm replying to, the server was one
of Gmail's so it tacked on:

Message-id: <CAJd9=037m-jHxR-Yz4DkQvukahPE3cK1LV_HcWJRk31+=Vc-pw at mail.gmail.com>

The important thing here is that it's supposed to be (a) netwise unique and (b)
remains the same across the lifetime of the message.

2) So say your mail was to the list, and a cc: to several people directly (the
usual state of affairs for Linux kernel development - as "reply all" is the
preferred way of doing things.  If I was listed directly, then I'll get two
copies - once for the direct copy and once from the list. (And yes, a mailing
list is supposed to preserve the value in most cases - those interested in the
gory details are referred to RFC 5322, section 3.6.4)

3) And that same Message-ID should be on both copies that I receive, which
means I can do duplicate suppression by simply saying "Have I seen this
Message-ID before?"

Works great, except....

When GMail sends your *outbound* mail, it remembers that Message-ID - which means
that when your own copy comes back from the posting to the list, GMail says "Hey,
I've seen this one before" and duplicate suppresses it. So one outbound copy
goes by and you don't see it, and then the other one gets munched, so you don't
see that one either. Whoops.

And yes, they know about it - me and some other email experts gave Google grief
about it when it was still in alpha/beta.  But they didn't listen, for reasons only they
understand(*)

To make life even *more* complicated, even though my copy of posts to the list gets
auto-deduped by GMail as it comes back, I still get a copy - because some AI in there
has figured out "Oh, he's a list subscriber, so when he posts, we'll remember the message-ID,
but also generate a copy right back into his inbox so he gets his list copy anyhow even
though we already know we're going to auto-dedup it".   Of course, this isn't a
settable, nor is it very obvious what causes GMail's AI to realize this - so I have
some lists that I get back a GMail-looped courtesy copy and some I don't.

Gaah. ;)

(*) Probably related to the way they monetize things.  As Upton SInclair wrote
a century ago: "It is impossible to get a man to understand something when his
paycheck depends on him not understanding it".


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