Comment 2:

I'm not sure this is even considered a bug; I think this is how gobs are supposed to
work. Per http://golang.org/pkg/encoding/gob/, pointers are flattened, so encoding
struct{x *int}{&0} (using "&0" as a notation for pointer to an int with value zero) is
intended to be equivalent to encoding struct{x int}{0}, which is specified to not be
explicitly encoded.
It's a shame that this means that encoding/gob can't preserve things like protocol
buffers, but that's just the way it is. The workaround there is to encode the proto
yourself, and encode []byte via gobs instead.

Labels changed: added priority-later, packagechange, removed priority-triage, go1.1.

Owner changed to @robpike.

Status changed to Thinking.

Comment 3:

A consequence of the design. Perhaps unfortunate, but not going to change.

Status changed to WorkingAsIntended.

Comment 4:

Issue #5275 has been merged into this issue.