Add a notice about project maintainership to the README file (and change it from an RST to Markdown file).

Author: matthewwardrop

MANIFEST.in

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 include setup.cfg .coveragerc tox.ini
-include TODO LICENSE.txt README.rst CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
+include TODO LICENSE.txt README.md CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
 recursive-include tools *.py *.R
 recursive-include doc *
 prune doc/_build

README.md

@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+# Patsy
+
+**Notice:** `patsy` is no longer under active development. As of August 2021,
+Matthew Wardrop (@matthewwardrop) and Tomás Capretto (@tomicapretto) have taken
+on responsibility from Nathaniel Smith (@njsmith) for keeping the lights on, but
+no new feature development is planned. The spiritual successor of this project
+is <a href="https://github.com/matthewwardrop/formulaic">Formulaic</a>, and we
+recommend those interested in new feature development contribute there. Those
+whose use-cases continue to be met by `patsy` can continue using this package
+with increased confidence that things will continue to work as is for the
+foreseeable future.
+
+---
+
+Patsy is a Python library for describing statistical models
+(especially linear models, or models that have a linear component) and
+building design matrices. Patsy brings the convenience of `R
+<http://www.r-project.org/>`_ "formulas" to Python.
+
+[![PyPI - Version](https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/patsy.svg)](https://pypi.org/project/spec-classes/)
+![PyPI - Python Version](https://img.shields.io/pypi/pyversions/patsy.svg)
+![https://patsy.readthedocs.io/](https://img.shields.io/badge/docs-read%20now-blue.svg)
+![PyPI - Status](https://img.shields.io/pypi/status/patsy.svg)
+![https://travis-ci.org/pydata/patsy](https://travis-ci.org/pydata/patsy.png?branch=master)
+![https://coveralls.io/r/pydata/patsy?branch=master](https://coveralls.io/repos/pydata/patsy/badge.png?branch=master)
+![https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.592075](https://zenodo.org/badge/DOI/10.5281/zenodo.592075.svg)
+
+- **Documentation:** <https://patsy.readthedocs.io/>
+- **Downloads:** <http://pypi.python.org/pypi/patsy/>
+- **Code and issues:** <https://github.com/pydata/patsy>
+- **Mailing list:** <[email protected]> (<http://groups.google.com/group/pydata>)
+
+
+## Dependencies
+
+  * Python (2.6, 2.7, or 3.3+)
+  * six
+  * numpy
+  * Optional:
+    * nose: needed to run tests
+    * scipy: needed for spline-related functions like ``bs``
+
+## Installation
+  ``pip install patsy`` (or, for traditionalists: ``python setup.py install``)
+
+## License
+
+2-clause BSD, see LICENSE.txt for details.

README.rst

@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
 DESC = ("A Python package for describing statistical models and for "
         "building design matrices.")
 
-LONG_DESC = open("README.rst").read()
+LONG_DESC = open("README.md").read()
 
 # defines __version__
 exec(open("patsy/version.py").read())