From the QGIS Development Team:

It is our great pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Quantum GIS (QGIS) Version 0.9.0. See below for press release:

Quantum GIS (QGIS) is a user friendly Open Source Geographic Information System (GIS) that runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, and Windows. QGIS supports vector, raster, and database formats. QGIS is licensed under the GNU General Public License.

QGIS lets you browse and create map data on your computer and includes support for many common spatial data formats (e.g. ESRI ShapeFile, GeoTIFF). QGIS supports plugins to do things like display tracks from your GPS. QGIS is Open Source software and it's free of cost. We welcome contributions from our user community in the form of code contributions, bug fixes, bug reports, contributed documentation, advocacy and supporting other users on our mailing lists and forums. Financial contributions are also welcome.

This release introduces several new features including Python support and many new GRASS modules. The release also includes numerous bug fixes and stability improvements. QGIS is available in source form, and as binary executables for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and GNU/Linux. All versions can be obtained from the download page at http://download.qgis.org.

As an open source project, the community provides support for via our mailing lists, forum, and bug tracker:

• For general inquiries subscribe to our users mailing list at http://lists.qgis.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user
• For developer related inquiries subscribe to our separate developers list at http://lists.qgis.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
• For discussion of QGIS, join the forum at http://forum.qgis.org
• If you think you have found a bug, please report it using our bug tracker. When reporting bugs, please include some contact information in case we need help with replicating your issue at https://svn.qgis.org/trac

Major changes in this release are:

• Python bindings - This is the major focus of this release it is now possible to create plugins using Python. It is also possible to create GIS enabled applications written in Python that use the QGIS libraries.
• Removed automake build system - QGIS now needs CMake for compilation.
• Many new GRASS tools added (with thanks to http://faunalia.it)
• Map Composer updates
• Crash fix for 2.5D shapefiles
• The QGIS libraries have been refactored and better organised.
• Improvements to the GeoReferencer

QGIS is a completely volunteer driven project, and is the work of a dedicated team of developers, documenters and supporters. We extend our thanks and gratitude for the many, many hours people have contributed to make this release happen.