diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
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+<!--
+    Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+    contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+    this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+    The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+    the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+    the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+        http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+    Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+    distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+    WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+    See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+    limitations under the License.
+ -->
+
+# Apache Lucene and Solr
+
+Apache Lucene is a high-performance, full featured text search engine library
+written in Java.
+
+Apache Solr is an enterprise search platform written using Apache Lucene.
+Major features include full-text search, index replication and sharding, and
+result faceting and highlighting.
+
+## Online Documentation
+
+This README file only contains basic setup instructions.  For more
+comprehensive documentation, visit:
+
+- Lucene: <http://lucene.apache.org/core/documentation.html>
+- Solr: <http://lucene.apache.org/solr/guide/>
+
+## Building Lucene/Solr
+
+(You do not need to do this if you downloaded a pre-built package.)
+
+Lucene and Solr are built using [Apache Ant](http://ant.apache.org/).  To build
+Lucene and Solr, run:
+
+`ant compile`
+
+The Solr server can then be packaged and prepared for startup by running the
+following command from the `solr/` directory:
+
+`ant server`
+
+## Running Solr
+
+After [building Solr](#building-lucene-solr), the server can be started using
+the `bin/solr` control scripts.  Solr can be run in either standalone or
+distributed (SolrCloud mode).
+
+To run Solr in standalone mode, run the following command from the `solr/`
+directory:
+
+`bin/solr start`
+
+To run Solr in SolrCloud mode, run the following command from the `solr/`
+directory:
+
+`bin/solr start -c`
+
+The `bin/solr` control script allows heavy modification of the started Solr.
+Common options are described in some detail in solr/README.txt.  For an
+exhaustive treatment of options, run `bin/solr start -h` from the `solr/`
+directory.
+
+## Development/IDEs
+
+Ant can be used to generate project files compatible with most common IDEs.
+Run the ant command corresponding to your IDE of choice before attempting to
+import Lucene/Solr.
+
+- *Eclipse* - `ant eclipse`
+- *IntelliJ* - `ant idea`
+- *Netbeans* - `ant netbeans`
+
+## Running Tests
+
+The standard test suite can be run with the command:
+
+`ant test`
+
+Like Solr itself, the test-running can be customized or tailored in a number or
+ways.  For an exhaustive discussion of the options available, run:
+
+`ant test-help`
+
+## Contributing
+
+Please review the [Contributing to Solr
+Guide](https://wiki.apache.org/solr/HowToContribute) for information on
+contributing.
+
+## Discussion and Support
+
+- [Users Mailing List](http://lucene.apache.org/solr/community.html#solr-user-list-solr-userluceneapacheorg)
+- [Developers Mailing List](http://lucene.apache.org/solr/community.html#developer-list-devluceneapacheorg)
+- [Lucene Issue Tracker](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LUCENE)
+- [Solr Issue Tracker](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SOLR)
+- IRC: `#solr` and `#solr-dev` on freenode.net
diff --git a/README.txt b/README.txt
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-Apache Lucene/Solr
-
-lucene/ is a search engine library
-solr/ is a search engine server that uses lucene
-
-To compile the sources run 'ant compile'
-To run all the tests run 'ant test'
-To setup your ide run 'ant idea', 'ant netbeans', or 'ant eclipse'
-For Maven info, see dev-tools/maven/README.maven
-
-For more information on how to contribute see:
-http://wiki.apache.org/lucene-java/HowToContribute
-http://wiki.apache.org/solr/HowToContribute
diff --git a/lucene/CHANGES.txt b/lucene/CHANGES.txt
index 69ba53f33f7..909b6ce4fff 100644
--- a/lucene/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/lucene/CHANGES.txt
@@ -167,6 +167,8 @@ Other
   resolved against Lucene's class loader by default. Please use another builder
   method to change to a custom classloader.  (Uwe Schindler)
 
+* LUCENE-5822: Convert README to Markdown (Jason Gerlowski via Mike Drob)
+
 ======================= Lucene 6.7.0 =======================
 
 New Features