+-*- outline -*-
+
+These notes intend to help people working on the checked-out sources.
+These requirements do not apply when building from a distribution tarball.
+
+* Requirements
+
+We've opted to keep only the highest-level sources in the repository.
+This eases our maintenance burden, (fewer merges etc.), but imposes more
+requirements on anyone wishing to build from the just-checked-out sources.
+For example, you have to use the latest stable versions of the maintainer
+tools we depend upon, including:
+
+- Automake <http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/>
+- Autoconf <http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/>
+- Flex <http://www.gnu.org/software/flex/>
+- Gettext <http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/>
+- Gzip <http://www.gnu.org/software/gzip/>
+- Tar <http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/>
+- Wget <http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/>
+
+Only building the initial full source tree will be a bit painful.
+Later, after synchronizing from the repository a plain `make' should
+be sufficient.
+
+Valgrind <http://valgrind.org/> is also highly recommended, if
+Valgrind supports your architecture.
+
+Bison is written using Bison grammars, so there are bootstrapping
+issues. The bootstrap script attempts to discover when the C code
+generated from the grammars is out of date, and to bootstrap with an
+out-of-date version of the C code, but the process is not foolproof.
+Also, you may run into similar problems yourself if you modify Bison.
+
+Only building the initial full source tree will be a bit painful,
+later, a plain `cvs update -P && make' should be sufficient.
+
+* First checkout
+
+Obviously, if you are reading these notes, you did manage to check out
+Bison from the repository. For the record, you will find all the
+relevant information on:
+
+ http://savannah.gnu.org/cvs/?group_id=56
+
+The next step is to get other files needed to build, which are
+extracted from other source packages:
+
+ $ ./bootstrap
+
+And there you are! Just
+
+ $ ./configure
+ $ make
+ $ make check
+
+At this point, there should be no difference between your local copy,
+and the master copy:
+
+ $ cvs diff
+
+should output no difference.
+
+Enjoy!
+
+-----
+
+Copyright (C) 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Free Software
+Foundation, Inc.
+
+This file is part of GNU Bison.
+
+GNU Bison 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, or (at your option)
+any later version.
+
+GNU Bison 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 Bison; see the file COPYING. If not, write to
+the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor,
+Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.