diff --git a/Makefile.am b/Makefile.am
index fd7ef30db..1a5f9d3df 100644
--- a/Makefile.am
+++ b/Makefile.am
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ if !NO_CUBE_BUILD
 endif
 SUBDIRS += ccmain api . tessdata doc
 
-EXTRA_DIST = ReleaseNotes \
+EXTRA_DIST = ReleaseNotes README.md\
 	aclocal.m4 config configure.ac autogen.sh contrib \
 	tesseract.pc.in $(TRAINING_SUBDIR) java doc testing
 
diff --git a/README b/README.md
similarity index 97%
rename from README
rename to README.md
index cc7436631..16860838f 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
-Note that this is a text-only and possibly out-of-date version of the 
-wiki ReadMe, which is located at:
+Note that this is possibly out-of-date version of the wiki ReadMe,
+which is located at:
 
-  https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract/blob/master/README
+  https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract/blob/master/README.md
 
 Introduction
 ============
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 15ae09dc4..5916953fb 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -62,7 +62,8 @@ AC_SUBST(GENERIC_VERSION)
 # Automake configuration
 # ----------------------------------------
 
-AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE
+# Do not require README file (we use README.md)
+AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([foreign])
 AC_CONFIG_HEADERS(config_auto.h:config/config.h.in)
 AM_MAINTAINER_MODE