diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 7829861..61075a9 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -2,5 +2,4 @@ bin
 gen
 launchpad-*.tar.gz
 local.properties
-res/values/version.xml
 *~
diff --git a/build.xml b/build.xml
index b7e3e32..aebe4f9 100644
--- a/build.xml
+++ b/build.xml
@@ -126,6 +126,11 @@
         <xpath input="AndroidManifest.xml" expression="/manifest/@android:versionName"
                     output="manifest.version.name" />
 
+        <!-- tell git to ignore changes to the version xml -->
+        <exec executable="git">
+            <arg line="update-index --assume-unchanged res/values/version.xml"/>
+        </exec>
+
         <!-- find out the description of the current Git commit -->
         <exec executable="git" outputproperty="git.revision">
             <arg line="describe --match 'v[0-9]*' --dirty"/>
diff --git a/res/values/version.xml b/res/values/version.xml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..94227c9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/res/values/version.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+<resources>
+	<string name="msg_version" translatable="false">ConnectBot (working copy)</string>
+</resources>