Jeff Kletsky wrote:

Even with "good intent" the message in question is clearly in violation of CAN-SPAM and Cal. Bus. Prof. Code Sec. 17529, of which the sender was informed of when my server was accessed.

And you have proof of this?  That they received notice?  I assume 

you have their signature? Computers talking in the night doesn't count as 'proof'.

It was very clearly an "electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service."

Really?  Dovecot is a commercial venture?  I thought it was free 

software. Someone, with the personal permission of the list owner was allowed to mention that they would be willing to offer support for this product?
Are you pissed because they didn't offer it for free? This is a list about dovecot -- no where does it say it will be private nor that the email addresses on this list are protected from spam. Dovecot isn't a private company.

It doesn't matter if it was good or bad intent.  You being on this list

of your own free will establishes a relationship of the sort that, if pre-existing, permits commercial offers. If you don't want that ever again, otherwise by remaining on the list, you give some permission for occasional messages that might be construed to offering services for money, that are approved by the list owner.

If it exceeds anyone's tolerance, including mine, I would believe 

any of us would have the same right to leave. I don't think the list owner would want to abuse his position and cause wholesale departures.
OTOH, I don't think this rises anywhere near to the level of even the most minor offense.

Personally, I found this discussion *about* the issue to have 

generated more traffic than all the spam I've gotten from this list in the past 6 months.

So -- guess what?   I don't care.

You might want to reconsider your demands on the list owner who has 

put together some fine quality software for your use -- for free.
Otherwise, you risk really looking like a completely self-centered pompous ass.

And note, this is based on current traffic levels from this list of such email (which are way exceeded by the people talking about it -- so it's completely irrational to argue about it occurring or not when the people complaining about it have generated over 10 times as much traffic in a few days. As for the spam levels from here.. My spam filters regularly take out about 30 spam messages/day (based on the 1200+ messages in the past 40 days in my spam folder).
Like 1 email from a list I subscribe to is gonna likely even be noticed by me?? Unlikely.

(normally a lurker, but someone who can't tolerate intolerance! ;-) )...