diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index 59ef53c..edec6f0 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 project('espeakup', 'c',
   version : '0.82',
-  default_options : ['c_std=c11', 'warning_level=3'])
+  license : 'GPL-3.0-or-later',
+  default_options : ['buildtype=debugoptimized', 'c_std=gnu11', 'warning_level=3'])
 
 cc = meson.get_compiler('c')
 thread_dep = dependency('threads')