diff --git a/roles/openafs-deb-package-build/README.rst b/roles/openafs-deb-package-build/README.rst
index a9f4679b..7d7a96bb 100644
--- a/roles/openafs-deb-package-build/README.rst
+++ b/roles/openafs-deb-package-build/README.rst
@@ -1,3 +1,26 @@
 Build OpenAFS Ubuntu Packages
 
-This pushes builds to launchpad
+This builds openafs source packages and, with the publishing steps,
+pushes them to be built by as an Ubuntu PPA.
+
+OpenDev has traditionally kept separate OpenAFS packages in a PPA
+which are used by production hosts.  In the past the LTS distro
+versions have had bugs, or lacked support for architectures/kernels
+(ARM64 + HWE kernels, practically) we needed -- necessitating keeping
+separate, fresh versions.
+
+Upstream packages keep a PPA at
+https://launchpad.net/~openafs/+archive/ubuntu/stable
+
+As much as possible, we generally import and use their debian/*
+infrastructure (including patches, etc.) as a base here.  This PPA
+doesn't build all the architectures we need, but also isn't focused on
+the immediate needs of OpenDev production; thus despite it's regular
+maintence it is still helpful for us to have our own package builds.
+
+These problems are much less with current distros (>= 2022) and
+openafs 1.8 series; our goal is to generally carry no differences.
+
+Note the openafs-rpm-package-build jobs are a counter-part to this, as
+OpenAFS hasn't been available on RPM distros.  We try to keep these in
+sync so our infrastructure is more or less at the same level.