diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 9939c273b..6fc437aa4 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -12,3 +12,4 @@ docs/plugins
 *.mo
 push.sh
 merge.sh
+src/version.py
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 02b27847c..45332a3d3 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -45,13 +45,32 @@ while '--clean' in sys.argv:
 
 import glob
 import shutil
-import os.path
+import os
+import subprocess
 
-from src.version import version
 
 plugins = [s for s in os.listdir('plugins') if
            os.path.exists(os.path.join('plugins', s, 'plugin.py'))]
 
+try:
+    proc = subprocess.Popen('git show HEAD --format=%ci', shell=True,
+            stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
+    version = proc.stdout.readline() \
+            .strip() \
+            .replace(' +', '+') \
+            .replace(' ', 'T')
+
+    try:
+        os.unlink(os.path.join('src', 'version.py'))
+    except OSError: # Does not exist
+        pass
+    open(os.path.join('src', 'version.py'), 'a').write(
+            "version = '0.83.4.1+limnoria %s'\n" % version)
+except:
+    raise
+
+from src.version import version
+
 def normalizeWhitespace(s):
     return ' '.join(s.split())
 
diff --git a/src/version.py b/src/version.py
deleted file mode 100644
index 797ce2c5c..000000000
--- a/src/version.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-"""stick the various versioning attributes in here, so we only have to change
-them once."""
-version = '0.83.4.1+limnoria (2012-05-04T16:56:13+0000)'