diff --git a/bin/make-dist.sh b/bin/make-dist.sh
index feb47a460a65a58c0ac23f07b137603e8e6d216d..c79a06a44e95815e12e3fcb8188189d2e2502de4 100755
--- a/bin/make-dist.sh
+++ b/bin/make-dist.sh
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
 # $Header: /Volumes/share2/src/cmucl/cvs2git/cvsroot/src/tools/make-dist.sh,v 1.20 2011/04/11 16:34:49 rtoy Exp $
 
 usage() {
-    echo "make-dist.sh: [-hbg] [-G group] [-O owner] [-I destdir] [-M mandir] dir version [arch os]"
+    echo "make-dist.sh: [-hbg] [-G group] [-O owner] [-I destdir] [-M mandir] dir [version arch os]"
     echo "  -h           This help"
     echo "  -b           Use bzip2 compression"
     echo "  -g           Use gzip compression"
@@ -40,6 +40,9 @@ usage() {
     echo "<arch>, and <os> are given values, and <c> is gz or bz2 depending"
     echo "on the selected compression method."
     echo ""
+    echo "If version is not given, then a version is determined automatically"
+    echo "based on the result of git describe."
+    echo ""
     echo "If arch and os are not given, the script will attempt to figure an"
     echo "appropriate value for arch and os from the running system."
     echo ""
@@ -100,13 +103,17 @@ do
 	h | \?) usage; exit 1 ;;
     esac
 done
-	
+
+echo $@	
 shift `expr $OPTIND - 1`
 
 # Figure out the architecture and OS
 ARCH=
 OS=
 
+# Figure out the architecture and OS
+def_arch_os
+
 if [ -n "${INSTALL_DIR}" ]; then
     # Doing direct installation
     if [ $# -lt 1 ]; then
@@ -115,10 +122,20 @@ if [ -n "${INSTALL_DIR}" ]; then
 	def_arch_os
     fi
 elif [ $# -lt 2 ]; then
-    usage
+    # Version not specified so choose a version based on the git hash.
+    GIT_HASH="`(cd src; git describe --dirty 2>/dev/null)`"
+
+    if expr "X${GIT_HASH}" : 'Xsnapshot-[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]-[01][0-9]' > /dev/null; then
+	VERSION=`expr "${GIT_HASH}" : "snapshot-\(.*\)"`
+    fi
+
+    if expr "X${GIT_HASH}" : 'X[0-9][0-9][a-f]' > /dev/null; then
+	VERSION="${GIT_HASH}"
+    fi
+
+    echo "Defaulting version to $VERSION"
 else
-    # Figure out the architecture and OS
-    def_arch_os
+    VERSION="$2"
     if [ $# -eq 3 ]; then
 	ARCH=$3
     elif [ $# -eq 4 ]; then
@@ -147,9 +164,7 @@ fi
 
 TARGET="`echo $1 | sed 's:/*$::'`"
 
-if [ -z "$INSTALL_DIR" ]; then
-    VERSION=$2
-else
+if [ -n "$INSTALL_DIR" ]; then
     VERSION="today"
 fi