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

[Yubin Ruan]

On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 04:24:41PM -0500, valdis.kletnieks at vt.edu wrote:
> 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

I am using gmail but never notice the behaviors you stated. Thanks for your
information. See below:
 
> 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.

By "gets munched" you mean "get deleted", right? But why would the other one
gets deleted if Gmail suppress the duplicate message? Is this your
configuration fault?
 
> 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.

Hmm... I didn't noticed which list works and which not yet (I was not aware of
the situation where duplicate message with same Message-ID get suppressed by
Gmail previously). Is kernel newbie affected, or any other lists?

        Yubin

> 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".
> 
>