diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bcaccd0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,52 @@
+# BlocksFree and cppo-ng
+
+This project began as cppo-ng, an attempt to begin evolving cppo, a script
+written by Ivan Drucker, to be more pythonic.  It's growing into something a
+bit bigger than that, however.  See <HISTORY.md> if you want details about
+where it started and how it's gotten here.
+
+The goal is no longer simply to clean up the `cppo` script!
+
+
+## What we actually want
+
+TL;DR:
+
+* A scriptable AppleCommander-ac-like tool
+* `cppo` with all of its present external interface.
+* The features of CiderPress from the command line
+* Native feel on Windows, Mac, and Linux at the minimum
+* Future: A GUI tool that can display characters natively
+
+It should be quite doable to build a tool like AppleCommander-ac with the
+ability to read, write, convert, dump, and other things that one currently does
+with AppleCommander.  Moreover, it should be no major thing to have it be able
+to output data in a mechanical format that can be processed by shell scripts or
+JSON that can be processed by anything more functionally complete.  That will
+resolve the issues of the thing being written in Python if you need something
+else for the majority of cases.  It's not a perfect solution for Windows
+outside of development tools, but development tools are the primary application
+for this.
+
+We have tools that need `cppo` and we cannot assume that we're the only ones
+who do.  We could maintain the existing script, but it has both bugs and
+limitations.  Better to emulate the old cppo using a new interface.  You can do
+this with a runner that provides the old interface alongside the modern one.
+That's the plan.
+
+The possibility of using [urwid]() exists to provide a textual interface.  It's
+probably desirable for any GUI to be abstract enough to have multiple
+implementations, but the idea that you might want a textual interface should be
+considered.
+
+[urwid]: http://urwid.org/
+
+
+## Documentation
+
+If you'd like to write some.  :)
+
+
+## Contributions
+
+Yes please!