On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 11:08 AM, Rick Moen rick@linuxmafia.com wrote:
[1] Earliest reference I can find is Nov. 1996. Elsewhere (http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-admin-balug.org/2005-September/000078...), I've posted that Sifry and Tyde founded the group in 1997. I seem to been off by a year -- but that's the sort of thing that happens when a group obliterates its own history.
I found a Usenet archive of a posting to comp.os.linux.misc from July, 1997 that announce the 1 year anniversary meeting, so 1996 would be correct.
For look back at previous versions of the BALUG web site from the Internet Archive:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.balug.org
For a snapshot of the original mail list, as of April, 1999:
http://web.archive.org/web/19990203040039/balug.org/resMail.html
The next snapshot after that was taken by the Internet Archive in October of 1999, which was after the new site design had wiped out the original one.
For an incomplete list of some early speakers:
http://web.archive.org/web/19990202183446/balug.org/meetOld.html
Mike