Well, the initial initiative starting tis site came from Ian Crawford (you can read his announcement of the site here).
It was first meant as a meeting and coordination point for people developing native and free Linux games, but its scope was soon widened to support Linux game development in general - the phrase "This site aspires to be the headquarters for all Linux game development" is from that time.
Cut - Switch to the PenguinPlay mailing list. Shortly after Ian's announcement of this site Sam Lantiga had the idea that the PenguinPlay people could get together on IRC to discuss the future of Linux game development. His idea was considered as "really good" and after the first meeting the thing was extended to all people involved in pushing game development for Linux. Here is the invitation that was sent around to all known projects.
Well, the irc meetings became a regular event (each Saturday) and the possibility to have a real-time discussion through irc gave a big push to our work. We started discussing on how we could coordinate our efforts better, how to make Linux more appealing to professional game developers etc. After a few meetings we came to the conclusion that it would be best to merge the SDK projects (ClanLib, CrystalSpace, GAMES and PenguinPlay) to one, giving it the full support. It seemed to be the right thing, but we were a bit uneasy with it, as merging projects is a very, very difficult task.
Then Charles Durst threw in a proposal for a clearing room project, i.e. a project that would give developers from different game SDK projects a good way to communicate with each other, remind these developers to keep the different SDKs compatible to each other etc. He first proposed that PenguinPlay could become this "meta project", but we found Ian Crawfords "Linux Game Development Center" much more fitting.
Well, here we are now. You are looking at the homepage representing the Linux game development efforts, a site not only created in cooperation with Linux game SDK developers but created and maintained by them.
Enjoy your stay. :)