From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon May 4 02:00:20 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A30AF106566B for ; Mon, 4 May 2009 02:00:20 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jeffrey@goldmark.org) Received: from out1.smtp.messagingengine.com (out1.smtp.messagingengine.com [66.111.4.25]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 78FAE8FC0A for ; Mon, 4 May 2009 02:00:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jeffrey@goldmark.org) Received: from compute2.internal (compute2.internal [10.202.2.42]) by out1.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 901333396E0; Sun, 3 May 2009 22:00:14 -0400 (EDT) Received: from heartbeat1.messagingengine.com ([10.202.2.160]) by compute2.internal (MEProxy); Sun, 03 May 2009 22:00:14 -0400 X-Sasl-enc: OkovJmbqeZZ0HcmIgwymmgIdGGjoixhlKMQ1oGwfkDjl 1241402414 Received: from hagrid.ewd.goldmark.org (n114.ewd.goldmark.org [72.64.118.114]) by mail.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 2672047228; Sun, 3 May 2009 22:00:14 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <39ADDCA2-77E6-46CE-BE21-5D976ACA77B4@goldmark.org> From: Jeffrey Goldberg To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <20090503152809.686e5d83@scorpio> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v930.3) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 21:00:12 -0500 References: <13c915526491f115459852ed8aadf9d7@www.hostmailing.com> <20090503152809.686e5d83@scorpio> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.930.3) Cc: Exemys Subject: Meta: useless text/plain part [Was: Ethernet - Internet I/O] X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 02:00:20 -0000 On May 3, 2009, at 2:28 PM, Jerry wrote: > On Sun, 3 May 2009 16:30:16 -0300 > Exemys wrote: > >> This is a message in multipart MIME format. Your mail client should >> not be displaying this. Consider upgrading your mail client to view >> this message correctly. > > What is this all about? Exemys' mailer is broken. Here are the details: Exemys sent mail that was of type multipart/alternative meaning that each part is an alternative view of the content. However, exemys' mailer doesn't actually do what it should and the part that was text/plain just had the text that we saw while the other part (presumably text/html) had the real content. Mailman, the mailing list system used for the list, correctly cuts out text/html parts of multipart/alternative messages and just sends on the text/plain alternative to the list members. So the problem is that the original poster's mail headers falsely claim that the parts are genuine alternatives while in fact the text part is just a notice to read the other alternate. Mailman is behaving correctly in my view, stripping out any HTML alternates and just going with the text/plain alternative. Exemys' mailer is broken in that it sends messages that claim to provide a text/plain alternative, but doesn't actually honor that claim. Cheers, -j -- Jeffrey Goldberg http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/