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README.md

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+# Jikes Research Virtual Machine
+
+Jikes RVM (Research Virtual Machine) provides a flexible open testbed to prototype virtual machine technologies and experiment with a large variety of design alternatives. The system is licensed under the [EPL](http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html), an [OSI](http://www.opensource.org/) approved license. Jikes RVM runs on IA32 32 bit (64 bit support is work in progress) and PowerPC (big endian only).
+
+A distinguishing characteristic of Jikes RVM is that it is implemented in the Java™ programming language and is self-hosted i.e., its Java code runs on itself without requiring a second virtual machine. Most other virtual machines for the Java platform are written in native code (typically, C or C++). A Java implementation provides ease of portability, and a seamless integration of virtual machine and application resources such as objects, threads, and operating-system interfaces.
+
+More information is available at our [website](http://www.jikesrvm.org).
+
+# Building
+
+You'll need
+
+* a JDK (>= 6)
+* Ant (>= 1.7) with optional tasks
+* GCC with multilibs
+* Bison
+* an internet connection during the first build to download [GNU Classpath](http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/) and other components
+
+Please see the [user guide](http://www.jikesrvm.org/UserGuide/) for more details.
+
+# Need support?
+
+Please ask on the researchers [mailing list](http://www.jikesrvm.org/MailingLists/).
+
+# Bug reports
+
+If you want to report a bug, please see [this page on our website](http://www.jikesrvm.org/ReportingBugs/).
+
+# Contributions
+
+See the [contributions page](http://www.jikesrvm.org/Contributions/) for details. 
+
+The short version:
+
+* Contributions are licsensed under EPL and require a Contributor License Agreement. You keep your copyright.
+* You can send us patches or use pull requests. Send patches to the [core mailing list](mailto:jikesrvm-core@lists.sourceforge.net).
+* It is ok to test on one platform only (e.g. only on IA32).
+
+# History
+
+The project migrated from Subversion to Mercurial and from Mercurial to Git. Certain older changes are not contained in this repository. If you need access to these changes, you can browse the old repositories at [SourceForge](http://sourceforge.net/p/jikesrvm). We will mirror the old repositories on GitHub in the future.