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+# Nimrod Compiler
+This repo contains the Nimrod compiler, Nimrod's stdlib, tools and 
+documentation.
+
+## Compiling
+Compiling the Nimrod compiler is quite straightforward. Because
+the Nimrod compiler itself is written in the Nimrod programming language
+the C source of an older version of the compiler are needed to bootstrap the
+latest version. The C sources are however included with this repository under
+the build directory.
+
+Pre-compiled snapshots of the compiler are also available on
+[Nimbuild](http://build.nimrod-code.org/). Your platform however may not 
+currently be built for.
+
+The compiler currently supports the following platform and architecture 
+combinations:
+  
+  * Windows (Windows XP or greater) - x86 and x86_64
+  * Linux (most, if not all, distributions) - x86, x86_64, ppc64 and armv6l
+  * Mac OS X 10.04 or higher - x86, x86_64 and ppc64
+  
+In reality a lot more are supported, however they are not tested regularly.
+
+To build from source you will need:
+
+  * gcc 3.x or later recommended. Other alternatives which may work
+    are: clang, Visual C++, Intel's C++ compiler
+  * unzip
+  * git or wget
+
+If you are on a fairly modern *nix system, the following steps should work:
+
+```
+$ git clone git://github.com/Araq/Nimrod.git
+$ cd Nimrod
+$ cd build
+$ unzip csources.zip
+$ cd ..
+$ ./build.sh
+$ bin/nimrod c koch
+$ ./koch boot -d:release
+```
+
+The install script (``install.sh``) may then be used to install Nimrod, or you
+can simply add it to your PATH.
+
+The above steps can be performed on Windows in a similar fashion, the
+``build.bat`` and ``build64.bat`` (for x86_64 systems) are provided to be used
+instead of ``build.sh``.
+
+## Getting help
+A [forum](http://forum.nimrod-code.org/) is available if you have any questions,
+and you can also get help in the IRC channel
+on [Freenode](irc://irc.freenode.net/nimrod) in #nimrod.
+
+## License
+The compiler is licensed under the GPLv2 license, the standard library is
+licensed under the LGPL license with a linking exception so that you can link
+to it statically. This means that you can use any license for your own programs 
+developed with Nimrod, allowing you to create commercial applications.
+
+Read copying.txt for more details.
+
+Copyright (c) 2004-2013 Andreas Rumpf.
+All rights reserved.