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Subjectmail to news
TS> I've heard that there is software one can run locally to take a mailing
TS> list and convert it to a local newsgroup, so one can read a mailing list
TS> with a newsreader. I don't know how good such software is, though, since
TS> mail doesn't have a references line, like news does, to make threading
TS> easy. It would be possible, I suppose, for a sophisticated program to
TS> examine the quoting in each mailing list message and figure out what
TS> each is a response to, and syntehsis references information that way, but
TS> I don't know if any of the mail --> news software is that smart.

I'm running a local mail2news gateway here for linux-kernel and some other
lists. It generally works (sorry, it's not on a public network, it's in
intranet).

E-mail messages always contain Message-Id headers and when replying with
intelligent mail client, also In-Reply-To header that contains the replied
message's Message-Id and previous entries in In-Reply-To if present.
I modified mail2news to convert In-Reply-To to References header and it
works. I can see the threads with my newsreader, even when the subject
changes.

Some hints for someone who might be going to set up a similar system:

* some programs use In-Reply-To: header, but they don't put the Message-Id
there but someting like "John's e-mail about kernel". These kinds of
In-Reply-To's should be ignored (I test for < and > around it).

* mutt sometimes puts a header "In-Reply-To: <no.id>" in the letter.
Probably it doesn't like the previous Message-Id (there must be one
AFAIK). This screws up threading for some readers since several articles
contain reference to the same Message-Id. The solution is to ignore
<no.id>.

--
Meelis Roos (mroos@tartu.cyber.ee)

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