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+=============
+Getting Lasso
+=============
+
+Lasso is licensed under the GNU General Public License.  That means users are
+given several inalienable rights: the right to use the library, whatever the
+purpose is; the right to study how it works, getting access to source code; the
+right to distribute the library to others and the right to modify the library
+and publish those modifications.
+
+Talks about library and how Lasso will force the use of the GPL.
+
+
+Binary packages
+===============
+
+Debian packages
+---------------
+
+The latest Lasso release should be available straight from any Debian mirror
+worldwide in the ``etch`` or ``sid`` distribution.  Additionaly packages are
+provided for the ``sarge`` release on a dedicated APT repository.  The
+following line needs to be added to ``/etc/apt/sources.list``::
+
+  deb http://www.entrouvert.org ./debian/lasso/
+
+It is then a matter of running::
+
+  apt-get install liblasso-dev
+
+
+RPM packages
+------------
+
+RPM Bad.  A mess.
+
+
+Microsoft Windows packages
+--------------------------
+
+Ah.  Isn't that funky ?  (need to ask Romain about cygwin, mingw32 and whatever
+is needed to get Lasso working on Windows)
+
+
+Sources
+=======
+
+The source code of the latest release is available at the following URL:
+http://labs.libre-entreprise.org/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31
+
+Lasso uses the GNU automake and autoconf to handle system dependency
+checking.  It is developed and built locally on GNU/Linux (Debian) both
+on x86 and PowerPC processors.
+
+Compiling
+---------
+
+::
+
+  ./configure
+
+The ``configure`` shell script attempts to guess correct values for various
+system-dependent variables used during compilation.  It uses those values to
+create a ``Makefile`` in each directory of the package.  It may also create one
+or more ``.h`` files containing system-dependent definitions.  Finally, it
+creates a shell script ``config.status`` that can be run in the future to
+recreate the configuration, and a file ``config.log`` containing compiler
+output (useful mainly for debugging ``configure``).
+
+``configure`` can take a lot of options, a complete list is available with the
+``--help`` flag: ``./configure --help``
+
+Installation Directories
+````````````````````````
+
+By default, Lasso will be installed in ``/usr/local/lib``.  It is possible to
+specify an installation prefix other than ``/usr/local`` by giving the option
+``--prefix=PATH``; for example ``--prefix=/usr``.
+
+
+Optional Features
+`````````````````
+
+There are optional features that you may want not to build, things like unit
+tests, bindings for different languages, etc.
+
+=====================    ============================
+``--disable-java``       Disable the Java binding
+``--disable-python``     Disable the Python binding
+``--disable-php``        Disable the PHP binding
+``--disable-csharp``     Disable the C# binding
+``--disable-tests``      Disable the unit tests
+=====================    ============================
+
+On the other hand there are features you may want to activate.
+
+======================   ====================================
+``--enable-debugging``   Enable debugging messages
+``--enable-profiling``   Enable profiling compilation flags
+======================   ====================================
+
+Once ``./configure`` has been executed it is time to compile the whole thing.
+
+::
+
+  make
+
+It should take a few minutes.
+
+::
+
+  make install
+
+Will then copy the library and header files to their final directories.
+
+Bleeding Edge
+-------------
+
+CVS (Concurrent Versions System) is the version control system used by Lasso
+developers to keep track of files, how and by whom they were modified.  It is
+accessible anonymously for people to use the latest developments.
+
+::
+
+  export CVSROOT=:pserver:anonymous@cvs.labs.libre-entreprise.org:/cvsroot/lasso
+  cvs login     # press enter
+  cvs -z3 checkout lasso
+
+.. note:: The CVS version requires more tools to build; notably automake,
+          autoconf and libtool.
+