Mozilla Mail, "Format=Flowed" and Patch Submissions

[Per Bothner]

Ranjit Mathew wrote:

> I had to stop using Mozilla Mail for submitting
> patches and switch back to Netscape Messenger 4.8
> because Mozilla Mail used to insert an extra space
> into lines in a message starting with a space,
> completely ruining a patch submission!
> 
> It turns out that this is a "feature" and an implementation
> of RFC 2646 (in particular, "Format=Flowed") - see:
> 
> Well, if like me you are not terribly excited by this
> "feature" implementation in Mozilla Mail/News, fortunately
> there is a way to completely disable it - enter the
> following in your Mozilla "prefs.js"

Or, better, send your patch as an attachment.  This does
not get the format=flowed treatment.

There is one problem:  a line that starts with "From " is turned
into ">From ", even in an attachment.  However, I believe this
is a sendmail bug, not Mozilla's fault.  Or rather it's a bug
in the Berkeley mail file format that sendmail stores the mail
messages in.  (Suggestions for fixing this welcome:  I'm currently
running Red Hat 8 on my server, but will consider switching to
RH 9.  The solution must be compatible with imapd, and simple
to switch to.)
-- 
	--Per Bothner
per@bothner.com   http://per.bothner.com/