doc: convert README to markdown and update CONTRIBUTING.md

Fixes #9233

Change-Id: If64480cbfaafe44025fcdcc0f20d76c995ffb3a1
Reviewed-on: https://go-review.googlesource.com/1296
Reviewed-by: Russ Cox <rsc@golang.org>

1 files changed, 41 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..478021e151
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+# The Go Programming Language
+
+![Gopher image](doc/gopher/fiveyears.jpg)
+
+For documentation about how to install and use Go,
+visit http://golang.org/ or load doc/install-source.html
+in your web browser.
+
+Our canonical Git repository is located at https://go.googlesource.com/go.
+(There is a mirror of the repository at https://github.com/golang/go.)
+
+Please report issues here: https://github.com/golang/go/issues
+
+Go is the work of hundreds of contributors. We appreciate your help!
+
+To contribute, please read the contribution guidelines:
+	http://golang.org/doc/contribute.html
+
+Unless otherwise noted, the Go source files are distributed
+under the BSD-style license found in the LICENSE file.
+
+--
+
+## Binary Distribution Notes
+
+If you have just untarred a binary Go distribution, you need to set
+the environment variable $GOROOT to the full path of the go
+directory (the one containing this README).  You can omit the
+variable if you unpack it into /usr/local/go, or if you rebuild
+from sources by running all.bash (see doc/install.html).
+You should also add the Go binary directory $GOROOT/bin
+to your shell's path.
+
+For example, if you extracted the tar file into $HOME/go, you might
+put the following in your .profile:
+
+	export GOROOT=$HOME/go
+	export PATH=$PATH:$GOROOT/bin
+
+See https://golang.org/doc/install or doc/install.html for more details.
+