diff --git a/COPYING b/COPYING
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..cc3da7efd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/COPYING
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+Fish is a smart and user-friendly command line shell.
+
+Copyright (C) 2005-2009 Axel Liljencrantz
+
+fish is free software.
+
+Most of fish is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2, and
+you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU GPL as
+published by the Free Software Foundation.
+
+fish also includes software licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public
+License version 2, the OpenBSD license and the ISC license.
+
+Full licensing information is contained in doc_src/license.hdr.
+
+This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
+ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
+FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for
+more details.
diff --git a/LICENSE b/LICENSE
deleted file mode 100644
index 675de26ef..000000000
--- a/LICENSE
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,16 +0,0 @@
-Fish is a smart and user-friendly command line shell.
-Copyright (C) 2005-2009 Axel Liljencrantz
-
-This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
-modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
-as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
-of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
-
-This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
-but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
-MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
-GNU General Public License for more details.
-
-You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
-along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
-Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301, USA.