[originally from svn r4699]
[originally from svn r4430]
[originally from svn r3820]
[originally from svn r2210]
the latest release. This is so that .tar.gz snapshots for the Unix port can be versioned as `0.53-20021016' or similar, meaning that (e.g.) Debian version numbering can be monotonic between releases and snapshots. [originally from svn r2083]