diff --git a/CVS-INFO b/CVS-INFO
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..d211c5f3e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/CVS-INFO
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+This file is only present in the CVS - never in release archives.
+
+This contains information about other files and things that the CVS repository
+keeps in its inner sanctum.
+
+CHANGES.0     contains ancient changes.
+
+memanalyze.pl is for analyzing the output generated by curl if -DMALLOCDEBUG
+              is used when compiling
+
+perl/         is a subdirectory with various perl scripts
+
+To build after having extracted everything from CVS, do this:
+
+% automake
+% autoconf
+% ./configure
+% make