diff --git a/HACKING b/HACKING
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..ba064f6815
--- /dev/null
+++ b/HACKING
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+What we are trying to achieve:
+
+satisfy:
+  patching of CVS checkout using our patch files placed in our CVS
+
+  passing of
+    make
+    make distcheck
+    non-srcdir build (ie, mkdir build; cd build; ../configure; make)
+
+How it works:
+
+* configure checks whether or not it should update ffmpeg from CVS by looking
+  at the nano version number
+  - if it's 1, we're in cvs mode, and it should check it out
+  - if it's not 1, we're in prerel or rel mode, and the code should already
+    be on disk
+    FIXME: we could change this to really check out the source code if some
+    required files aren't there just in case someone checks out from CVS
+    but CVS is not at nano 1
+
+* patching of the checked-out copy happens at
+
+Axioms under which we work:
+- the dist tarball needs to include either
+  - the pristine ffmpeg checkout + our patches + a patch mechanism on make
+  or
+  - the ffmpeg checkout with patches already applied
+
+- configure/make is not allowed to touch files that already live in the source
+  tree; if they need to then they need to be copied first and cleaned
+  afterward
+
+- it would be very nice if, on update of either the Tag file or the patch set,
+  make would know exactly what to do with it.
+
diff --git a/README b/README
index 449f49106d..b459edd890 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -1,39 +1,9 @@
-This is a sandbox module to test if our build setup for external libraries
-(for example FFmpeg) is sane.
+gst-ffmpeg
 
-What we are trying to achieve:
+This module contains a GStreamer plugin for FFmpeg, as well as an internal
+copy of the FFmpeg source code.
 
-satisfy:
-  patching of CVS checkout using our patch files placed in our CVS
-
-  passing of
-    make
-    make distcheck
-    non-srcdir build (ie, mkdir build; cd build; ../configure; make)
-
-How it works:
-
-* configure checks whether or not it should update ffmpeg from CVS by looking
-  at the nano version number
-  - if it's 1, we're in cvs mode, and it should check it out
-  - if it's not 1, we're in prerel or rel mode, and the code should already
-    be on disk
-    FIXME: we could change this to really check out the source code if some
-    required files aren't there just in case someone checks out from CVS
-    but CVS is not at nano 1
-
-* patching of the checked-out copy happens at
-
-Axioms under which we work:
-- the dist tarball needs to include either
-  - the pristine ffmpeg checkout + our patches + a patch mechanism on make
-  or
-  - the ffmpeg checkout with patches already applied
-
-- configure/make is not allowed to touch files that already live in the source
-  tree; if they need to then they need to be copied first and cleaned
-  afterward
-
-- it would be very nice if, on update of either the Tag file or the patch set,
-  make would know exactly what to do with it.
+It is separated from the GStreamer Plugins module because it is too
+hard to maintain inside the Plugins module.
 
+This module requires GStreamer to be built.
diff --git a/ext/Makefile.am b/ext/Makefile.am
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..2e709bec44
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ext/Makefile.am
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+SUBDIRS = ffmpeg