diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 087ed774c..c64c68fd5 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,10 @@
+2007-09-03  Jim Meyering  <jim@meyering.net>
+
+	Don't change '-'s to '.'s in the string from git-describe.
+	* build-aux/git-version-gen: Leave '-'s in the string from git-describe.
+	Otherwise, s/-/./g would make it too hard to distinguish the base
+	version number from the appended .DD suffixes.
+
 2007-09-03  Jim Meyering  <jim@meyering.net>
 
 	* README-hacking: Require rsync, rather than wget.
diff --git a/build-aux/git-version-gen b/build-aux/git-version-gen
index 0fe5f3688..a3e95aca6 100755
--- a/build-aux/git-version-gen
+++ b/build-aux/git-version-gen
@@ -38,8 +38,8 @@ elif test -d .git \
 	 *) (exit 1) ;;
        esac
 then
-    # Remove the "g" in git-describe's output string; change each - to a '.'
-    v=`echo "$v" | sed 's/\(.*\)-g/\1-/;s/-/./g'`;
+    # Remove the "g" in git-describe's output string.
+    v=`echo "$v" | sed 's/\(.*\)-g/\1-/'`;
 else
     v=$default_version
 fi