.. |updatedisclaimer|

.. _`label_forward`:

*********
Foreword
*********

Welcome to the wonderful world of Geographical Information Systems (GIS)!

|qg| is an Open Source Geographic Information System. The project
was born in May of 2002 and was established as a project on SourceForge in June
of the same year. We've worked hard to make GIS software (which is traditionally
expensive proprietary software) a viable prospect for anyone with basic access
to a Personal Computer. |qg| currently runs on most Unix platforms, Windows, and
OS X. |qg| is developed using the Qt toolkit (http://qt.digia.com)
and C++. This means that |qg| feels snappy to use and has a pleasing,
easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI).

|qg| aims to be an easy-to-use GIS, providing common functions and features.
The initial goal was to provide a GIS data viewer. |qg| has reached the point
in its evolution where it is being used by many for their daily GIS data viewing
needs. |qg| supports a number of raster and vector data formats, with new
format support easily added using the plugin architecture.

|qg| is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Developing |qg|
under this license means that you can inspect and modify the source code,
and guarantees that you, our happy user, will always have access to a GIS
program that is free of cost and can be freely modified. You should have
received a full copy of the license with your copy of |qg|, and you also can
find it in Appendix :ref:`gpl_appendix`.

.. index:: documentation

.. tip::
        **Up-to-date Documentation**

        The latest version of this document can always be found in the documentation
        area of the |qg| website at http://www.qgis.org/en/docs/