Quoting (purportedly?) Aaron C. (aaronco36@SDF.ORG):
FYI, an excellent web-resource for 95percent-plus Linux events is Rick Moen's Bay Area Linux Events site http://linuxmafia.com/bale/ (the one notable not-just-Linux-or-FOSS exception might be Rick's relatively recent listings for Tom's Berkeley Pi Meeting group http://linuxmafia.com/bale/#berkeleypi)
BALE has never had a hard requirement for either Linux or for open source.[1]
It originated as, and frankly remains, a reminder calendar for Bay Area technical events that Rick Moen happens to find interesting and to mix well enough with the other events listed. At origin, that was mostly Linux groups; hence the name and URL. And the verbal imagery works, too, IMO: It's a (virtual) bale of upcoming events, bundled into a chronological list. Perl groups, Python groups, BSD groups, and a lot of others have followed that happened to catch my eye and make me think 'that's interesting' -- including groups like CocoaHeads, Silicon Valley Chapter, which is strongly Apple-centric and proprietary, and seldom has any intersection with Linux, but which I find interesting despite those drawbacks.
It actually took me very much by surprise, about six months after I first created the page, that the entire technical community in the greater Bay Area was relying on and referring to BALE, in preference to the groups' Web sites it points to. Part of the reason was that the individual group Web sites were (then) very poorly maintained, and ignored basics like making most-needed information most-prominent.
About a decade ago, two of three individuals (notably one Ed Cherlin and one Bill Ward) loudly demanded that I 'open up' BALE so that they could insert into its listings arbitrary other groups they liked that I chose to disregard because I just didn't find them interesting or for other reasons. I sympathised with their problem, but advised that BALE is actually not a public utility. It's my page, on my site, publishing content curated by me. OTOH, I pointed out, the underying software ('autobale') is fully open source, simple, and publicly available. Therefore, I suggested they remember A.J. Liebling's aphorism -- 'Freedom of the press is available only to those who own one' -- and run their own damned autobale instance that implemented _their_ curation policies. I offered help, and even offered a Debian CD, or, if that required too much competence, Ubuntu. ;->
My suggestion and offer of assistance was, predictably, ignored, however, and one of the strident dissidents, can't remember which one, created a Google Calendar, instead.
Because outsourcing to hosted propretary software run and controlled by the world's second-nosiest corporation is so very much easier than thinking.
Besides SF-LUG's once-a-month meeting, I'd suggest your also looking into some of the outlier locations for their bona fide _Linux_ end-user support and feedback for those relatively new to installing
- using Linux, e.g., BerkeleyLUG, the Diablo Valley Linux User Group
(DVLUG), the East Bay Linux User Group (EBLUG), and maybe one or two other regional Linux User Groups.
So, what's CABAL, then? Chopped liver? ;->
[1] I really wish people would take the expressions 'FOSS' and (even worse) 'FLOSS' and dump them in a radioactive pit, somewhere. Talk about your incompetently obscure antimarketing.