diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4754bb5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+ooo-util
+========
+
+A place for OOO utilities.
+
+This is a public library, so we don't want hopelessly threerings-specific
+things in there (put those in the newly slimmed down threerings library). What
+we can do is rely on Guava, which is what keeps useful things out of samskivert
+and often pushes them into weird places like Narya.
+
+What we can also do is use ooo-util to export the latest version of samskivert
+and Guava to all of our other projects. A project that relies on the latest
+snapshot of ooo-util can expect to have the latest snapshot of samskivert and
+Guava, and when either samskivert or Guava ships a versioned release, we'll
+ship a versioned release of ooo-util so that projects can bump to that release
+to obtain the latest transitive depends.
+
+We should stronly resist the addition of additional depends to this library,
+unless they are indisputably useful to every single library and project in the
+whole wide world. Guava made that cut a long while back, and samskivert lingers
+with us like an embarrassing uncle, but I don't imagine another universally
+useful library is likely to come along in this decade. But if it does, we've
+got a place to put it.