unlisted-recipients:; (no To-header on input) #15
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The problem comes that the original patch didn't have To field either:
https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20190926225604.9342-1-efremov@linux.com So pwcli should not copy that without checking that the email address is valid. |
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Jun 3, 2023
The existing wording in the 'Select the recipients for your patch' section of submitting-patches.rst states that contributors should 'copy' maintainers and lists, which might be interpreted to mean that patch e-mails should be sent 'Cc' such recipients without any 'To' recipients at all. Indeed, this does happen on occasion (and to be fair, examples of the practice predating the submitting-patches document exist in kernel mailing list archives). It isn't a problem on the protocol level, as SMTP itself deals only with SMTP commands (cf. 'RCPT TO'), but software that works with MIME headers in message text, perhaps in order to generate those commands, doesn't always handle the situation well. At present, when such an e-mail is sent to the vger listservs, the MIME header 'To: unlisted-recipients:; (no To-header on input)' is added to it somewhere along the chain. 'unlisted-recipients:;' is a valid RFC 5322 Group Address, but it (or '(no To-header on input)') sometimes goes on to cause problems itself further down the line. For example, in mutt, it can result in the silent removal of all 'Cc' recipients (e.g. kernel mailing lists) from a group reply, leaving the 'To' recipient that the original e-mail was 'From' as the only actual reply recipient [1]. Other issues [2] are possible in other software [3]. It also bears mentioning that a lack of 'To' headers is a characteristic of some spam, so such an e-mail may trigger some spam filters. To reduce ambiguity and eliminate this class of potential (albeit tangential) issues, prescribe sending patches 'To' maintainers and 'Cc' lists. While we're at it, strengthen the recommendation to use scripts/get_maintainer.pl to find patch recipients, and move Andrew Morton's callout as the maintainer of last resort to the next paragraph for better flow. Link: neomutt/neomutt#2548 [1] Link: python/cpython#83281 [2] Link: kvalo/pwcli#15 [3] Signed-off-by: James Seo <james@equiv.tech>
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In an accepted email the Cc header contains:
Cc: unlisted-recipients:; (no To-header on input)https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20191001111912.A75D36014B@smtp.codeaurora.org
Though rest of the Cc and To field looks ok.
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