diff --git a/LICENSE b/LICENSE
index 26f4325e28..fa178620aa 100644
--- a/LICENSE
+++ b/LICENSE
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 Copyright Neovim contributors. All rights reserved.
 
+Neovim is licensed under the terms of the Apache 2.0 license, except for
+parts of Neovim that were contributed under the Vim license (see below).
+
 Neovim's license follows:
 
 ====
@@ -180,9 +183,10 @@ Neovim's license follows:
 
 ====
 
-This license applies to all parts of Neovim that do not originate in Vim and
-are not externally maintained libraries. The externally maintained libraries
-used by Neovim are:
+The above license applies to all parts of Neovim except (1) parts that were
+contributed under the Vim license and (2) externally maintained libraries.
+
+The externally maintained libraries used by Neovim are:
 
   - Klib: a Generic Library in C. MIT/X11 license.
   - libuv. Copyright Joyent, Inc. and other Node contributors.
@@ -190,7 +194,10 @@ used by Neovim are:
 
 ====
 
-Any parts of Neovim that originated in Vim are licensed under the Vim license.
+Any parts of Neovim that were contributed under the Vim license are licensed
+under the Vim license unless the copyright holder gave permission to license
+those contributions under the Apache 2.0 license.
+
 The Vim license follows:
 
 VIM LICENSE
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 487fd1d08c..4489903e37 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -73,8 +73,16 @@ Join the community on IRC in #neovim on Freenode or the [mailing list](https://g
 
 ### License
 
-Neovim is licensed under the terms of the Apache 2.0 License.
-Parts of Neovim that originated in Vim remain under the Vim license.
+Neovim is licensed under the terms of the Apache 2.0 license, except for
+parts that were contributed under the Vim license.
+
+- Contributions committed before [b17d96][license-commit] by authors who did
+  not sign the Contributor License Agreement (CLA) remain under the Vim license.
+
+- Contributions committed after [b17d96][license-commit] are licensed under
+  Apache 2.0 unless those contributions were copied from Vim (identified in 
+  the commit logs by the `vim-patch` token).
+
 See LICENSE for details.
 
     Vim is Charityware.  You can use and copy it as much as you like, but you are
@@ -88,4 +96,6 @@ See LICENSE for details.
     You can also sponsor the development of Vim.  Vim sponsors can vote for
     features.  The money goes to Uganda anyway.
 
+[license-commit]: commit/b17d9691a24099c9210289f16afb1a498a89d803
+
 <!-- vim: set tw=80: -->