In my defence I only posted that because @leeyis suggested the day Joe died - and to me the day someone has died is a dark day (when my brother died for instance, my mum would get very upset on his birthday, and to help her overcome this I’d tell her not to cry or be upset because his birthday is a special day - it’s the day he came in to this world and so a day we really should celebrate and be thankful for, by all means be upset on the day he died, but, if you really think about it, the day he was born truly was a special one).
In @leeyis’s defence I’ll add that it’s not unusual to honour someone in some way on their passing. On one of my first platforms (which was the largest of its type across the globe) when one of our most active members died I suggested we dedicate the site to her - she had helped so many people and was a huge part of our team and community (though of course not the only one) and everyone unanimously agreed.
Personally I agree with you Robert, and I think the ‘best’ day could have been the day or week that the first few lines of code were written - and perhaps that could have been ascertained by maybe you and Mike or the Erlang Core Team asking Ericsson if you could go through their records to determine that day or week (or even month).
Failing that, another option could have simply been the year - but on every 5th and 10th anniversary. That way we could have a year long celebration and this is fitting because there are soo many people who have helped make Erlang what it is, from you, Joe and Mike, to everyone else who worked on it in the early days, to those who are or have been part of the Erlang/OTP Team, to the people who have been part of the Erlang community and even people like José who helped reignite interest in Erlang through projects like Elixir. There are so many people who have been a part of the Erlang success story and I think a year long celebration would be very appropriate, and it could also allow conferences or EEF events to focus on each person or group of people per event. This way everyone could get the recognition they deserve 
(not least of all you Robert, you know we love you, right? 
).
PS since a date has been set now I’ll pencil this thread to auto close in a few days time. If the EEF would like to reopen the topic they can always start a new thread 