4 [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/xtuple/xtuple.png)](https://travis-ci.org/xtuple/xtuple)
8 xTuple is open-source business management software. The code is managed by an eponymous
9 company in Norfolk, VA, and our community stretches around the world. Our web application
10 is implemented as an [HTML5 node.js app](https://github.com/xtuple/xtuple/wiki/Overview).
11 The other client to our server is a [desktop app](https://github.com/xtuple/qt-client) written
12 in the cross-platform Qt framework.
14 Most of our commercial customers are inventory-based manufacturers or distributors, and we have a
15 fair amount of commercially-licensed code to specifically support these use-cases. That said,
16 businesses of all sorts, even services-based companies, run their operations on our open-source
19 We're always happy when people use xTuple as a launching point for their own projects,
20 whether or not you have a commercial relationship with us.
22 ### Why you might be interested in hacking on our software
24 The xTuple platform provides a great starting point for business software in practically
25 any industry. What you get for free is an entire stack to work on top of, and a lot
26 of business objects that you might want, like `Invoices`, `Currencies`, `Tasks` and
27 `Contacts` (and about a hundred more) are already implemented.
29 Moreover, one of the great strengths of the framework is extensibility and privilege
30 control. Our extension system allows for a high level of modularity, and keeps you
31 from having to rewrite the core. Fine-grained, centrally-managed privilege
32 control is also an important feature that businesses typically want, and
33 we've taken special care to implement it reliably across the application.
37 Fork us, take a test drive with our [free trial](http://www.xtuple.com/free-trial),
39 If you want to be a contributor and are looking for a place to
40 make your mark, we're keeping a list of issues that are
41 [fair game](https://github.com/xtuple/xtuple/issues?labels=fair+game)
42 to pick off and provide
43 a convenient, well-documented starting point into our project.
45 ### Installing this project
47 The best way to start coding on our stack is to use our
48 [Vagrant setup](https://github.com/xtuple/xtuple/wiki/Become-an-xTuple-Developer!).
52 View the [Release Notes](RELEASE.md) to see a change log.
54 ### Additional Resources
56 * [Setting up a non-development demo environment](https://github.com/xtuple/xtuple/wiki/How-to-set-up-xTuple)
57 * [Building an Extension Tutorial](https://github.com/xtuple/xtuple-extensions/blob/master/docs/TUTORIAL.md)
58 * [API documentation](http://xtuple.com/jsdoc)
59 * [Developer Wiki](https://github.com/xtuple/xtuple/wiki)