diff --git a/README b/README
index 33cac74f..138717b3 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -10,3 +10,10 @@ Fundamental design decision:
   users must match.  No third-party EBL module are supported or allowed.
   The only reason there are separate modules is to not have the code for
   all architectures in all the binaries.
+
+- although the public libraries (libasm, libdw) have a stable API and are
+  backwards ABI compatbile they, and the elfutils tools, do depend on each
+  others internals, and on internals of libelf to provide their interfaces.
+  So they should always be upgraded in lockstep when packaging the tools
+  and libraries separately. For one example of how to do that, see the
+  config/elfutils.spec.