diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 17d56ba4..65dea8bd 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,9 @@
+2010-07-29  Joel E. Denny  <joeldenny@joeldenny.org>
+
+	maint: enable gnits only at stable releases.
+	* configure.ac (AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE): Underscore or dash in a
+	version string should disable gnits.  Explain in comments.
+
 2010-07-28  Joel E. Denny  <joeldenny@joeldenny.org>
 
 	i18n: update.
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index c0880552..73aa4735 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -37,11 +37,15 @@ AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR([m4])
 #
 # To avoid 1.11, we make 1.11.1 the minimum version.
 #
-# We want gnits strictness only when rolling a formal release so that we can,
-# for example, run make dist at other times without being required to add a
-# bogus NEWS entry.
+# We want gnits strictness only when rolling a stable release.  For
+# release candidates, we use version strings like 2.4.3_rc1, but gnits
+# doesn't like that, so we let the underscore disable gnits.  Between
+# releases, we want to be able run make dist without being required to
+# add a bogus NEWS entry.  In that case, the version string
+# automatically contains a dash, which we also let disable gnits.
 AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([1.11.1 dist-bzip2]
-                 m4_bmatch(m4_defn([AC_PACKAGE_VERSION]), [-], [gnu], [gnits]))
+                 m4_bmatch(m4_defn([AC_PACKAGE_VERSION]), [[-_]],
+                           [gnu], [gnits]))
 AC_CONFIG_HEADERS([lib/config.h:lib/config.hin])
 
 # Checks for the compiler.