(via Jean-Paul Boodhoo)

Manoj Khanna just created the Calgary Open Source Group specifically to foster the use of open source software in the Calgary market. Here is the group’s mandate:

“Calgary Open Source Group (COSG) is a forum that promotes the spread of Open Source Software and Free Software culture in Calgary. Through lively debate/talks, presentations and interactive network events, COSG aims to showcase the potential of open source software development and the impact it may have on software engineering for companies based in the oil city.”

Given the amount of open source software that I use in my day-to-day development and the fact that I often promote good open source tools in my presentations, I thought it only appropriate to join the group myself. So I’m member #3 right after Manoj and JP. I look forward to contributing to the community by promoting the adoption of open source tools where appropriate. Hopefully we can organize some presentations specifically around high quality open source tools for .NET development, especially for agile development. (Honestly, most of the great agile development tools – minus JetBrains ReSharper – come from the open source community.)