diff --git a/COPYING b/COPYING
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..919d1e25bbe9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/COPYING
@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+Copyright (c) 2003-2006 Eelco Dolstra
+
+Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
+a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
+"Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
+without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
+distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
+permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
+the following conditions:
+
+The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
+included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
+
+THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
+EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
+MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
+NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE
+LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION
+OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION
+WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
+
+======================================================================
+
+Note: the license above does not apply to the packages built by the
+Nix Packages collection, merely to the package descriptions (i.e., Nix
+expressions, build scripts, etc.).  Also, the license does not apply
+to some of the binaries used for bootstrapping Nixpkgs (e.g.,
+pkgs/stdenv/linux/tools/bash).  It also might not apply to patches
+included in Nixpkgs, which may be derivative works of the packages to
+which they apply.  The aforementioned artifacts are all covered by the
+licenses of the respective packages.