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+Samba is a free SMB and CIFS client and server and Domain Controller for UNIX
+and other operating systems. It is maintained by the Samba Team, who support the
+original author, Andrew Tridgell.
+
+This software is freely distributable under the GNU public license, a copy of
+which you should have received with this software (in a file called COPYING).
+
+# WHAT IS SMB/CIFS?
+This is a big question.
+
+The very short answer is that it is the protocol by which a lot of PC-related
+machines share files and printers and other information such as lists of
+available files and printers. Operating systems that support this natively
+include Windows 9x, Windows NT (and derivatives), OS/2, Mac OS X and Linux. Add
+on packages that achieve the same thing are available for DOS, Windows 3.1, VMS,
+Unix of all kinds, MVS, and more.  Some Web Browsers can speak this protocol as
+well (smb://).  Alternatives to SMB include Netware, NFS, Appletalk, Banyan
+Vines, Decnet etc; many of these have advantages but none are both public
+specifications and widely implemented in desktop machines by default.
+
+The Common Internet File system (CIFS) is what the new SMB initiative is called.
+For details watch [here](https://samba.org/cifs)
+
+# WHY DO PEOPLE WANT TO USE SMB?
+* Many people want to integrate their Microsoft desktop clients with their Unix
+servers.
+
+* Others want to integrate their Microsoft (etc) servers with Unix servers. This
+is a different problem to integrating desktop clients.
+
+* Others want to replace protocols like NFS, DecNet and Novell NCP, especially
+when used with PCs.
+
+# WHAT CAN SAMBA DO?
+Please refer to the WHATSNEW.txt included with this README for a list of
+features in the latest Samba release.
+
+Here is a very short list of what samba includes, and what it does. For many
+networks this can be simply summarized by "Samba provides a complete replacement
+for Windows NT, Warp, NFS or Netware servers."
+* a SMB server, to provide Windows NT and LAN Manager-style file and print
+services to SMB clients such as Windows 95, Warp Server, smbfs and others.
+
+* a Windows Domain Controller (NT4 and AD) replacement.
+
+* a file/print server that can act as a member of a Windows NT 4.0 or Active
+Directory domain.
+
+* a NetBIOS (rfc1001/1002) nameserver, which amongst other things gives browsing
+support. Samba can be the master browser on your LAN if you wish.
+
+* a ftp-like SMB client so you can access PC resources (disks and printers) from
+UNIX, Netware, and other operating systems
+
+* a tar extension to the client for backing up PCs
+
+* limited command-line tool that supports some of the NT administrative
+functionality, which can be used on Samba, NT workstation and NT server.
+
+For a much better overview have a look at the [web site](http://samba.org/samba)
+and browse the user survey.
+
+#### Related packages include:
+* cifsvfs, an advanced Linux-only filesystem allowing you to mount remote SMB
+filesystems from PCs on your Linux box. This is included as standard with Linux
+2.5 and later.
+
+* smbfs, the previous Linux-only filesystem allowing you to mount remote SMB
+filesystems from PCs on your Linux box. This is included as standard with Linux
+2.0 and later.
+
+# CONTRIBUTIONS
+
+### To contribute via GitHub
+  * fork the official Samba team repository on GitHub
+    -- see [GitHub](https://github.com/samba-team/samba)
+
+  * become familiar with the coding standards as described in README.Coding
+
+  * make sure you read the Samba copyright policy
+    -- see [Copyright Policy](https://www.samba.org/samba/devel/copyright-policy.html)
+
+  * create a feature branch
+
+  * make changes
+
+  * when committing, be sure to add signed-off-by tags
+    -- see [Commit message tags](https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/CodeReview#commit_message_tags)
+
+  * send a pull request for your branch through GitHub
+
+  * this will trigger an email to the samba-technical mailing list
+
+  * discussion happens on the samba-technical mailing list as described below
+
+  * more info on using Git for Samba development can be found on Samba Wiki
+    -- see [Using Git for Samba](https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Using_Git_for_Samba_Development)
+
+### To contribute via mailing lists
+Join the mailing list. The Samba team accepts patches (preferably in "diff -u"
+format, see [here](https://samba.org/samba/devel) for more details) and are
+always glad to receive feedback or suggestions to the address
+samba@lists.samba.org. More information on the various Samba mailing lists can
+be found at [mailman](http://lists.samba.org).
+
+You can also get the Samba sourcecode straight from the [git repository](http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Using_Git_for_Samba_Development).
+
+If you like a particular feature then look through the git change-log on the
+[web](https://git.samba.org/?p=samba.git;a=summary) and see who added it, then
+send them an email.
+
+Remember that free software of this kind lives or dies by the response we get.
+If no one tells us they like it then we'll probably move onto something else.
+
+
+# MORE INFO
+
+### DOCUMENTATION
+There is quite a bit of documentation included with the package, including man
+pages, and lots of .html files with hints and useful info. This is also
+available from the web page. There is a growing collection of information under
+docs/.
+
+A list of Samba documentation in languages other than English is available on
+the web page.
+
+If you would like to help with the documentation, please coordinate on the
+samba@lists.samba.org mailing list. See the next section for details on
+subscribing to samba mailing lists.
+
+### MAILING LIST
+Please do NOT send subscription/unsubscription requests to the lists!
+
+There is a mailing list for discussion of Samba.  For details go to [mailman](https://lists.samba.org)
+or send mail to <samba-subscribe@lists.samba.org>.
+
+There is also an announcement mailing list where new versions are announced. To
+subscribe go to [mailman](http://lists.samba.org) or send mail to
+<samba-announce-subscribe@lists.samba.org>. All announcements also go to the
+samba list, so you only need to be on one.
+
+For details of other Samba mailing lists and for access to archives, see
+[mailman](<http://lists.samba.org)
+
+### MAILING LIST ETIQUETTE
+
+A few tips when submitting to this or any mailing list.
+ - Make your subject short and descriptive. Avoid the words "help" or "Samba" in
+the subject. The readers of this list already know that a) you need help, and b)
+you are writing about samba (of course, you may need to distinguish between
+Samba PDC and other file sharing software). Avoid phrases such as "what is" and
+"how do i". Some good subject lines might look like "Slow response with Excel
+files" or "Migrating from Samba PDC to NT PDC".
+
+- If you include the original message in your reply, trim it so that only the
+relevant lines, enough to establish context, are included. Chances are (since
+this is a mailing list) we've already read the original message.
+
+- Trim irrelevant headers from the original message in your reply. All we need
+to see is a) From, b) Date, and c) Subject. We don't even really need the
+Subject, if you haven't changed it. Better yet is to just preface the original
+message with "On [date] [someone] wrote:".
+
+- Please don't reply to or argue about spam, spam filters or viruses on any
+Samba lists. We do have a spam filtering system that is working quite well thank
+you very much but occasionally unwanted messages slip through. Deal with it.
+
+- Never say "Me too." It doesn't help anyone solve the problem. Instead, if you
+ARE having the same problem, give more information. Have you seen something that
+the other writer hasn't mentioned, which may be helpful?
+
+- If you ask about a problem, then come up with the solution on your own or
+through another source, by all means post it. Someone else may have the same
+problem and is waiting for an answer, but never hears of it.
+
+- Give as much *relevant* information as possible such as Samba release number,
+OS, kernel version, etc...
+
+- RTFM. Google.
+
+### WEB SITE
+A Samba WWW [site](https://samba.org) has been setup with lots of useful info.
+
+As well as general information and documentation, this also has searchable
+archives of the mailing list and a user survey that shows who else is using this
+package.