.. _`label_forward`:

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

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

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 aims to be a user-friendly GIS, providing common functions and
features.
The initial goal of the project was to provide a GIS data viewer.
QGIS has reached the point in its evolution where it is being used
for daily GIS data-viewing needs, for data capture, for
advanced GIS analysis, and for presentations in the form of
sophisticated maps, atlases and reports.
QGIS supports a wealth of raster and vector data formats, with new
format support easily added using the plugin architecture.

QGIS is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Developing QGIS 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 QGIS, and you can also 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 QGIS website at
        https://www.qgis.org/resources/hub/#documentation.