diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 934111d7bd06eab6901c0db1b9a8441ea460b0a8..1b31c3df781131c370b57e770431d3212b440d97 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -44,6 +44,7 @@ configure
 config.*
 autom4te.cache
 INSTALL
+README
 aclocal.m4
 depcomp
 missing
diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 887736db4ab8aea46e47f2dbc2238ccb2622608f..5264766470340b55b4c393c2944a60750a546643 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1 +1 @@
-Generated automatically by 'make darcs-dist'
+See https://github.com/stevengj/nlopt for a detailed version history.
diff --git a/Makefile.am b/Makefile.am
index c400475c81c1db00e1103bb823146bde6ba75246..f1d9bd3436963bc86241470aac9b3a9fad129c42 100644
--- a/Makefile.am
+++ b/Makefile.am
@@ -28,10 +28,9 @@ endif
 pkgconfigdir = $(libdir)/pkgconfig
 pkgconfig_DATA = nlopt.pc
 
-# Somewhat hackish.  The "right" way to do this is by a dist-hook target,
-# but then darcs check will fail because it doesn't run in the darcs
-# repository.
-darcs-dist: distdir
-	darcs changes --summary > $(distdir)/ChangeLog
-	tardir=$(distdir) && $(am__tar) | GZIP=$(GZIP_ENV) gzip -c >$(distdir).tar.gz
-	$(am__remove_distdir)
+if MAINTAINER_MODE
+
+README: README.md
+	cp -f README.md $@
+
+endif
diff --git a/autogen.sh b/autogen.sh
index 01e036460d57515ca86b9a40fb372e00f64e3726..a9128dfded1d228c4ec80300148aa0696b1b799a 100755
--- a/autogen.sh
+++ b/autogen.sh
@@ -16,6 +16,8 @@ done
 
 touch swig/nlopt.scm.in
 
+cp README.md README
+
 # paranoia: sometimes autoconf doesn't get things right the first time
 autoreconf --verbose --install --symlink --force
 autoreconf --verbose --install --symlink --force