diff --git a/COPYING.NTCON b/COPYING.NTCON
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/COPYING.NTCON
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+/*****************************************************************************/
+/*                                                                           */
+/*  ntcon: free-standing console interface definitions                       */
+/*                                                                           */
+/*  Copyright (C) 2013,2014,2015  Z. Gilboa                                  */
+/*                                                                           */
+/*  This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify     */
+/*  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by     */
+/*  the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or        */
+/*  (at your option) version 3 of the License.                               */
+/*                                                                           */
+/*  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,          */
+/*  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of           */
+/*  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the             */
+/*  GNU General Public License for more details.                             */
+/*                                                                           */
+/*  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License        */
+/*  along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.     */
+/*                                                                           */
+/*****************************************************************************/
diff --git a/LICENSE b/LICENSE
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index 0000000..1005cda
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE
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+  ntcon: free-standing console interface definitions
+  --------------------------------------------------
+
+  Copyright (C) 2013,2014,2015  Z. Gilboa
+
+  This library is currently released under the GPLv2 and GPLv3 (see
+  COPYING.NTCON for the relevant text). If you wish to use this
+  library with a different license, please contact the author
+  at <writeonce at midipix dot org> and briefly describe the type
+  of license (or license exception) that you would like to obtain.
diff --git a/README b/README
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/README
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+ntcon: free-standing console interface definitions
+--------------------------------------------------
+
+
+how to build (quick)
+--------------------
+
+git clone git://midipix.org/ntcon &&
+mkdir ntcon_build &&
+cd ntcon_build &&
+../ntcon/configure --host=$HOST &&
+make &&
+make DESTDIR=$DESTDIR install
+
+* native builds are supported (leave out --host).
+* both in-tree and out-of-tree builds are supported.
+
+
+supported targets
+-----------------
++ x86_64-nt64-midipix
++ x86_64-w64-mingw32
++ i686-nt32-midipix
++ i686-w64-mingw32
+
+
+supported compilers
+-------------------
++ gcc
++ clang
++ Visual Studio
+
+
+IDE project files (forthcoming)
+-------------------------------
++ CodeLite
++ Code::Blocks
++ Visual Studio
+
+* above project files will not be part of the project
+  repository, but rather distributed separately.