diff --git a/make-distribution.sh b/make-distribution.sh
index 86868438e75c3acdc8dc8c80d2058291802b128b..94b473bf91cd3843f915880c24039b13ff55f2f5 100755
--- a/make-distribution.sh
+++ b/make-distribution.sh
@@ -100,6 +100,14 @@ if [ -z "$JAVA_HOME" ]; then
   exit -1
 fi
 
+if which git &>/dev/null; then
+    GITREV=$(git rev-parse --short HEAD 2>/dev/null || :)
+    if [ ! -z $GITREV ]; then
+	 GITREVSTRING=" (git revision $GITREV)"
+    fi
+    unset GITREV
+fi
+
 if ! which mvn &>/dev/null; then
     echo -e "You need Maven installed to build Spark."
     echo -e "Download Maven from https://maven.apache.org/"
@@ -186,7 +194,7 @@ ${BUILD_COMMAND}
 # Make directories
 rm -rf "$DISTDIR"
 mkdir -p "$DISTDIR/lib"
-echo "Spark $VERSION built for Hadoop $SPARK_HADOOP_VERSION" > "$DISTDIR/RELEASE"
+echo "Spark $VERSION$GITREVSTRING built for Hadoop $SPARK_HADOOP_VERSION" > "$DISTDIR/RELEASE"
 
 # Copy jars
 cp $FWDIR/assembly/target/scala*/*assembly*hadoop*.jar "$DISTDIR/lib/"