diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7a56bcb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+IPython/.git_commit_info.ini export-subst
diff --git a/IPython/.git_commit_info.ini b/IPython/.git_commit_info.ini
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..19c2a55
--- /dev/null
+++ b/IPython/.git_commit_info.ini
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+# This is an ini file that may contain information about the code state
+[commit hash]
+
+# The line below may contain a valid hash if it has been substituted during
+# 'git archive'
+archive_subst_hash=$Format:%h$
+
+# This line may be modified by the install process
+install_hash=
diff --git a/MANIFEST.in b/MANIFEST.in
index 765367a..124c74b 100644
--- a/MANIFEST.in
+++ b/MANIFEST.in
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@ graft IPython/scripts
 graft IPython/testing
 graft IPython/utils
 
+include IPython/.git_commit_info.ini
 
 graft docs
 exclude docs/\#*
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 834cb5f..e4d8e4f 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -6,12 +6,16 @@ Under Posix environments it works like a typical setup.py script.
 Under Windows, the command sdist is not supported, since IPython 
 requires utilities which are not available under Windows."""
 
-#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-#  Copyright (C) 2008  The IPython Development Team
+#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+#  Copyright (c) 2008-2010, IPython Development Team.
+#  Copyright (c) 2001-2007, Fernando Perez <fernando.perez@colorado.edu>
+#  Copyright (c) 2001, Janko Hauser <jhauser@zscout.de>
+#  Copyright (c) 2001, Nathaniel Gray <n8gray@caltech.edu>
 #
-#  Distributed under the terms of the BSD License.  The full license is in
-#  the file COPYING, distributed as part of this software.
-#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+#  Distributed under the terms of the Modified BSD License.
+#
+#  The full license is in the file COPYING.txt, distributed with this software.
+#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 #-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 # Minimal Python version sanity check
@@ -55,7 +59,8 @@ from setupbase import (
     find_package_data, 
     find_scripts,
     find_data_files,
-    check_for_dependencies
+    check_for_dependencies,
+    record_commit_info,
 )
 
 isfile = os.path.isfile
@@ -239,6 +244,7 @@ else:
 # Do the actual setup now
 #---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
+setup_args['cmdclass'] = {'build_py': record_commit_info('IPython')}
 setup_args['packages'] = packages
 setup_args['package_data'] = package_data
 setup_args['scripts'] = scripts
diff --git a/tools/make_tarball.py b/tools/make_tarball.py
index f5203e9..11738be 100755
--- a/tools/make_tarball.py
+++ b/tools/make_tarball.py
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ import shutil
 
 from  toollib import *
 
-tag = commands.getoutput('git describe')
+tag = commands.getoutput('git describe --tags')
 base_name = 'ipython-%s' % tag
 tar_name = '%s.tgz' % base_name