On *nix systems README was always the first file in the directory because everyone tended to use lower case for all their other filenames. I believe "Makefile"

On *nix systems README was always the first file in the directory because everyone tended to use lower case for all their other filenames. I believe "Makefile" tended to be capitalized too, since you generally wanted to look in there to see how to build the thing. I don't think anyone wrote that down, it's just how things worked out. If anything it probably was inspired by Alice in Wonderland (Eat Me/Drink Me).