diff --git a/meta-phosphor/conf/distro/include/phosphor-base.inc b/meta-phosphor/conf/distro/include/phosphor-base.inc
index 1d8cc4a..e42c8c2 100644
--- a/meta-phosphor/conf/distro/include/phosphor-base.inc
+++ b/meta-phosphor/conf/distro/include/phosphor-base.inc
@@ -69,7 +69,6 @@
 require conf/distro/include/yocto-uninative.inc
 
 DISTRO_NAME = "Phosphor OpenBMC (Phosphor OpenBMC Project Reference Distro)"
-DISTRO_VERSION = "0.1.0"
 TARGET_VENDOR="-openbmc"
 
 VIRTUAL-RUNTIME_keymaps = ""
diff --git a/meta-phosphor/recipes-core/os-release/os-release.bbappend b/meta-phosphor/recipes-core/os-release/os-release.bbappend
index 1585232..f42235e 100644
--- a/meta-phosphor/recipes-core/os-release/os-release.bbappend
+++ b/meta-phosphor/recipes-core/os-release/os-release.bbappend
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
         bb.warn("Unexpected exception from 'git' call: %s" % e)
         pass
 
-VERSION_ID := "${@run_git(d, 'describe --dirty')}"
+DISTRO_VERSION ??= "${@run_git(d, 'describe --dirty')}"
 VERSION = "${@'-'.join(d.getVar('VERSION_ID').split('-')[0:2])}"
 
 BUILD_ID := "${@run_git(d, 'describe --abbrev=0')}"