diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index da13e29e0..0bc8d017f 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,6 +1,13 @@
 NEWS since Mercury 0.13.1
 -------------------------
 
+Changes to the release numbering:
+
+The release is now numbered according to the year and month the
+release was made, eg 10.04 is the release made in April 2010.
+Previously the release naming scheme was 0.x where x was the x'th
+major release of the system.
+
 Changes to the Mercury language:
 
 * We have removed support for automatic initialisation of solver variables.
diff --git a/VERSION b/VERSION
index 36c801435..06e70b763 100644
--- a/VERSION
+++ b/VERSION
@@ -13,9 +13,13 @@ VERSION=DEV
 #
 # Pattern	Examples	Explanation
 # -------	-------		-----------
-# *.*		0.6, 0.7 	Major releases.
+# YY.MM		09.04, 10.10 	Major releases are named after the
+# 				year and month they are released in.
 #
-# *.*.*		0.6.1		Bug-fix releases.
+# YY.MM.*	10.04.1		Bug-fix releases.
+# 				Note these releases are named after
+# 				the year and month the orginal release
+# 				was made in.
 #
 # rotd-<DATE>	rotd-1997-07-28 "Release-of-the-day" releases.
 #				These releases are snapshots of our