Also ship a README file (in Markdown format)

Makefile

@@ -145,6 +145,7 @@ dist:
 		$(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION)/tools/helper.c \
 		$(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION)/tools/project.conf \
 		$(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION)/COPYING \
+		$(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION)/README.md \
 		$(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION)/Makefile \
 		$(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION)/config.h \
 		$(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION)/config.sh \

README.md

@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+DeforaOS Panel
+==============
+
+About Panel
+-----------
+
+This program is meant to display an arbitrary number of desktop panels, with
+support for one per edge of the screen at the moment. Each panel can then host a
+number of applets, implemented as plug-ins to the main program.
+
+A number of additional utilities is also available, allowing tighter integration
+of external applications, as well as when responding to system events
+(notifications...).
+
+Each of these tools, as well as Panel itself, are documented in a series of
+manual pages. They are also available in the HTML format.
+
+Compiling Panel
+---------------
+
+The current requirements for compiling Panel are as follows:
+ * Gtk+ 2.4 or later, or Gtk+ 3.0 or later
+ * DeforaOS libDesktop
+ * DeforaOS Browser
+ * an implementation of `make`
+ * gettext (libintl) for translations
+ * docbook-xsl for the documentation (optional)
+
+With these installed, the following command should be enough to compile Panel on
+most systems:
+
+    $ make
+
+On some systems, the Makefiles shipped can be re-generated accordingly thanks to
+the DeforaOS configure tool.
+
+The compilation process supports a number of options, such as PREFIX and DESTDIR
+for packaging and portability, or OBJDIR for compilation outside of the source
+tree.
+
+Extending Panel
+---------------
+
+Applets for the Panel program can be written according to the API definitions
+installed and found in <Desktop/Panel.h> (here in `include/Panel.h`).
+
+A sample applet can be found in `src/applets/template.c`.
+
+Further applets can also be found in the DeforaOS Integration project.
+
+Distributing Panel
+------------------
+
+DeforaOS Panel is subject to the terms of the GPL license, version 3. Please see
+the `COPYING` file for more information.

project.conf

@@ -3,4 +3,4 @@ version=0.3.1
 config=h,sh
 
 subdirs=data,doc,include,po,src,tests,tools
-dist=COPYING,Makefile,config.h,config.sh
+dist=COPYING,README.md,Makefile,config.h,config.sh