August 1997
In August 1997, Henry White, Paul Foster, Ed Centanni and a few others were looking for a local Linux group in the Tampa Bay area. Paul put his name up on the GLUE (Groups of Linux Users Everywhere) site, volunteering to start a group if none could be found. Henry sent emails to Paul and just about everyone else he could find about the possibility of starting/finding a group. Thirty-five emails were sent out. Eleven were undeliverable, and seven did not reply. The rest were interested!
Henry volunteered to lead the group. Paul suggested the SLUG name, had his wife come up with a logo, and provided server space for a SLUG website. Henry soon "liberated" a lot of web content from the North Texas Linux Users Group (NTLUG), and this was integrated into the website.
By the end of August 1997, SLUG had twenty members and a full-featured website.
October 1997
In October of 1997, based on Ed Centanni's suggestion, Paul Foster organized the first SLUG meeting at Chili's in Clearwater. It was a rainy day in late October, the day of the first ever USF homecoming game. Thirteen people showed up. It was noisy and informal, but it was a start.
Soon thereafter, Martin Randal joined the group and offered his services as listmaster; now SLUG had a mailing list!
December 1997
Martin Randal organized a stable meeting place and site for installfests at Thomas Jefferson High School in Tampa on the second Wednesday of each month. We held our first installfest at TJHS on 10 December 1997.
By the end of the 1997, SLUG had 66 members!
May 1998
In May of 1998, Bob Kindle negotiated with the Dunedin Public Library to allow us to hold Saturday meetings there. The first was held on the 23rd of May 1998 (Memorial Day weekend). Four SLUGs attended due to the holiday and under-promotion. But since then the number at the Dunedin meetings has been similar to that in Tampa.
December 1998
Henry White, long wishing to pass on the leadership of SLUG to someone else, presided over elections for new officers. Paul M. Foster was elected President, and Paul Braman (our longtime meeting organizer) was elected Vice President for Meetings. The "election" was the quickest in history. "Foster wants to do this and Braman wants to do that. Any objections? Done!"
January 1999
SLUG became a GLUE (Groups of Linux Users Everywhere) member, and received a "care package" of goodies from SSC (publishers of Linux Journal and sponsors of GLUE). We also had our first outside presenter, and created the SLUG Lending Library for users to borrow distributions and software between meetings.
February 1999
SLUG welcomes its 200th member!
May 1999
An online dispute between some members and the list sponsor/admin causes the list to go dark one Sunday afternoon. After three days of frantic effort, Russ Herrold of the Central Ohio Linux Users Group (COLUG) volunteers to host the SLUG list. The SLUG Announce list is also inaugurated.
Thanks to the sponsorship of the Tampa Bay Computer Society, SLUG is invited to participate in the ITEC show at the Tampa Convention Center. But we're invited too late, and end up with a auditorium under the stairwell, not a booth on the show floor. Traffic is dismal, and overall the effort is wasted.
24 July 1999
Our first big-name presenter appears! Stuart Anderson of Metro Link gave a talk about the Linux Standard Base project. Click here to read it!
August 1999
SLUG acquires its own domain name: www.suncoastlug.org! Thanks to Mark Bishop (a SLUG member in absentia) for doing the registration, and Terry Mackintosh for hosting the domain.
Paul Foster and Ed Centanni presented a demonstration of Linux for the Greater Tampa Bay PC Users Group. The presentation was well received, and they were invited back.
SLUG welcomes its three hundredth member!
January 2000
SLUG survives the Y2K bug (along with everyone else) and acquires a separate List Admin, a new Event Coordinator, and an Expansion Director (Marketing/PR person). Q & A sessions at every meeting are instituted, and presentations are scheduled for most meetings. Paul Braman opts out as Event/Meeting Coordinator.
March 2000
SLUG moves its website and domain name to one of Owl River Company's hosts. These are the same people who have hosted the lists for almost a year.
August 2000
After one too many flamefests, the SLUG Politics list is inaugurated. The purpose of the list is to defuse sensitive threads and provide an outlet for the more politically active SLUG members.
September 2000
SLUG is asked to man a booth at the Computer and Technology Showcase at the Tampa Convention Center on the 27th and 28th. Thanks to the efforts of Bill Preece, Diana Lenko, Norb Cartagena, Tim Jones, Curt Johnson, Ed Centanni and others, the show is a TREMENDOUS success! Thousands of Linux distros are acquired and passed out. Speakers from Red Hat, Turbo Linux, Andover and others make presentations. This is a sharp contrast to the ITEC show in May of 1999.
SLUG has over 400 members.
March 2001
Bylaws are amended and "splinter groups" are eliminated. Instead, leaders of meetings other than Tampa and Dunedin meetings become officers of the group. They get a full vote on group matters, and their meetings are announced in the same way Tampa and Dunedin meetings are announced.
Q & A sessions at Tampa and Dunedin meetings are discontinued, as they quickly go out of control and degrade into group discussions.
April 2001
A four day list outage occurs on the Owl River Company list host. After a local company-- Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS)-- offers to host the lists, they are moved to NKS hosts. The SLUG website continues to reside on an Owl River Company host.
May 2001
SLUG participates in its second CTS Expo, with a 20'x40' booth and "Linux Pavilion", this time at the Harborview in Clearwater. This coincided with the launch of Microsoft's Office XP, and as before, we were the busiest booth at the show. John "Maddog" Hall was a featured speaker, and we had a couple of run-ins with Microsoft people.
For a more complete rundown, go here.
Sarasota meetings are started.
10 August 2001
Linux Tenth Anniversary Picnic takes place at Lowry Park in Tampa.
17,18 October 2001
Our third CTS Expo, held at the Tampa Convention Center. This was barely a month after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, so attendance was off and several exhibitors had backed out of the show. We hosted the Melbourne LUG and IDEAL Corporation in our booth.
November 2002
5 January 2003
November 2003
17, 18 December 2003
12 October 2004
10 September 2005
16 September 2006
7 June 2007
26 June 2007
6 October 2007