You are probably anxious to get started using QGIS. In this chapter, we will review the basic functionality of QGIS, which will be assumed knowledge for the remaining chapters in this book. If you need a refresher on QGIS or a quick-start guide to QGIS, you should read this chapter. The topics we will cover in this chapter are as follows:
QGIS is a volunteer-led development project licensed under the GNU General Public License. It was started by Gary Sherman in 2002. The project was incubated with the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) in 2007. Version 1.0 was released in 2009. The continued development of QGIS is supported by an active and vibrant community from around the world. Many people assume that they can only help with the development of QGIS if they can perform computer programming, but this is false! QGIS has many community members that write documentation, test the program for bugs, translate documents, answer forum questions, and provide financial support. It is easy to get involved, and the authors encourage you to consider contributing. Learn about how to get involved at http://qgis.org/en/site/getinvolved/.
Currently, a new version of QGIS is released every four months. The version released each spring is designated as a long-term release (LTR). This means it will be supported for one calendar year. Each quarter, a new stable version is released and bug fixes applied to the LTR. The LTR is recommended for production environments since it has a slower release cycle. At the time of writing this book, QGIS 2.14 is the stable version and is also the current LTR.