2. 序言
欢迎来到地理信息系统(GIS)的奇妙世界！
QGIS is an Open Source Geographic Information System. The project was born in May 2002 and was established as a project on SourceForge in June the same year. We have worked hard to make GIS software (which is traditionally expensive proprietary software) available to anyone with access to a personal computer.
QGIS currently runs on most Unix platforms, Windows, and macOS. QGIS is developed using the Qt toolkit (https://www.qt.io) and C++. This means that QGIS feels snappy and has a pleasing, easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI). There are also independently created applications that allow you to take QGIS into the field. These applications can run on Android and iOS.
QGIS旨在成为一个用户友好的地理信息系统，提供常用的功能和特性。该项目的最初目标是提供一个GIS数据查看器。QGIS在其发展过程中已经达到了这样一个阶段：它被用于日常GIS数据查看需求、数据捕获、高级GIS分析以及以复杂的地图、地图册和报告的形式呈现。QGIS支持大量的栅格和矢量数据格式，使用插件架构可以轻松添加新的格式支持。
QGIS是根据GNU通用公共许可证（GPL）发布的。根据此许可证开发QGIS意味着您可以检查和修改源代码，并保证您，我们的快乐用户，将始终能够访问一个免费和可以自由修改的GIS程序。您应该已经收到一份完整的许可证副本和您的QGIS副本，您也可以在附录 附录A：GNU通用公共许可证（GUN GPL）。