diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 3188ab83..d7e25137 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -29,13 +29,10 @@ dnl Process this file with autoconf to produce a configure script.
 dnl
 
 AC_INIT([wget], 
-	[m4_normalize(esyscmd([sed -e 's/^.*"\(.*\)";$/\1/' src/version.c]))],
+	[1.12-devel],
 	[bug-wget@gnu.org])
 AC_PREREQ(2.61)
 
-# Make configure depend on the VERSION file, since it's used in AC_INIT
-AC_SUBST([CONFIGURE_DEPENDENCIES], ['$(top_srcdir)/src/version.c'])
-
 dnl
 dnl What version of Wget are we building?
 dnl
diff --git a/src/version.c b/src/version.c
deleted file mode 100644
index 87fdbae3..00000000
--- a/src/version.c
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-char *version_string = "1.10+devel";