diff --git a/LICENCE.MIT b/LICENCE.MIT
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..c78bcb9b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENCE.MIT
@@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
+The MIT License applies to contributions committed after July 1st, 2021, and
+to all contributions by the following authors:
+
+* ​A. Karl Kornel
+* Alex Willmer
+* Aymeric Augustin
+* Bernhard M. Wiedemann
+* Bradley Baetz
+* Éloi Rivard
+* Eyal Cherevatzki
+* Fred Thomsen
+* Ivan A. Melnikov
+* johnthagen
+* Jonathon Reinhart
+* Jon Dufresne
+* Martin Basti
+* Marti Raudsepp
+* Miro Hrončok
+* Petr Viktorin
+* Pieterjan De Potter
+* Raphaël Barrois
+* Robert Kuska
+* Stanislav Láznička
+* Tobias Bräutigam
+* Tom van Dijk
+* William Brown
+
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+MIT License
+
+Copyright (c) 2021 python-ldap contributors
+
+Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
+of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
+in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
+to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
+copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
+furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
+
+The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
+copies or substantial portions of the Software.
+
+THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
+IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
+FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
+AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
+LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
+OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
+SOFTWARE.
diff --git a/README b/README
index 81db9bb3..8045555d 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -127,3 +127,27 @@ their contributions and input into this package.
 
    Thanks! We may have missed someone: please mail us if we have omitted
    your name.
+
+Licence
+=======
+
+The python-ldap project comes with a LICENCE file.
+
+We are aware that its text is unclear, but it cannot be changed:
+all authors of python-ldap would need to approve the licence change,
+but a complete list of all the authors is not available.
+(Note that the Git repository of the project is incomplete.
+Furthermore, commits imported from CVS lack authorship information; users
+"stroeder" or "leonard" are commiters (reviewers), but sometimes not
+authors of the committed code.)
+
+The current maintainers assume that the license is the sentence that refers
+to "Python-style license" and assume this means a highly permissive open source
+license that only requires preservation of the text of the LICENCE file
+(including the disclaimer paragraph).
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+All contributions committed since July 1st, 2021, as well as some past
+contributions, are licensed under the MIT license.
+The MIT licence and more details are listed in the file LICENCE.MIT.