diff --git a/version.sh b/version.sh
index 90a08ac10e..31e929ff1c 100755
--- a/version.sh
+++ b/version.sh
@@ -7,13 +7,13 @@ test "$1" && extra="-$1"
 # Extract revision number from file used by daily tarball snapshots
 # or from "git describe" output
 git_revision=$(cat snapshot_version 2> /dev/null)
-test $git_revision || test ! -e .git || git_revision=`git rev-parse --short HEAD`
+test $git_revision || test ! -e .git || git_revision=`git describe --match "v[0-9]*" --always --tags --long`
 git_revision=$(expr "$git_revision" : v*'\(.*\)')
 test $git_revision || git_revision=UNKNOWN
 
 # releases extract the version number from the VERSION file
 version=$(cat VERSION 2> /dev/null)
-test $version || version=git-$git_revision
+test $version || version=$git_revision
 
 NEW_REVISION="#define VERSION \"${version}${extra}\""
 OLD_REVISION=$(head -n 1 version.h 2> /dev/null)