diff --git a/src/main/assembly/dist.xml b/src/main/assembly/dist.xml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..0258fea4f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/main/assembly/dist.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<!--
+    Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+    or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+    distributed with this work for additional information
+    regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+    to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+    "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+    with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+    Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+    software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+    "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+    KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+    specific language governing permissions and limitations
+    under the License.
+-->
+<assembly
+    xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/assembly/1.1.0"
+    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
+    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/assembly/1.1.0
+    http://maven.apache.org/xsd/assembly-1.1.0.xsd">
+
+    <id>project</id>
+    <formats>
+        <format>tar.gz</format>
+    </formats>
+
+    <fileSets>
+
+        <!-- Include everything except generated files / VCS metadata  -->
+        <fileSet>
+            <directory>${project.basedir}</directory>
+            <useDefaultExcludes>true</useDefaultExcludes>
+            <excludes>
+                <exclude>**/*.log</exclude>
+                <exclude>**/${project.build.directory}/**</exclude>
+            </excludes>
+        </fileSet>
+
+        <!-- Explicitly include .gitignore (parsed by RAT) -->
+        <fileSet>
+            <directory>${project.basedir}</directory>
+            <useDefaultExcludes>false</useDefaultExcludes>
+            <includes>
+                <include>**/.gitignore</include>
+            </includes>
+        </fileSet>
+
+    </fileSets>
+
+</assembly>