diff --git a/configure b/configure
index a9d02ffc44..269d1927f3 100755
--- a/configure
+++ b/configure
@@ -261,7 +261,7 @@ EOW
 }
 
 # Check that the user actually wants this version.
-if ($version{LABEL} ne 'release') {
+if (defined $version{REAL_LABEL}) {
 	print_warning <<'EOW';
 You are building a development version. This contains code which has
 not been tested as heavily and may contain various faults which could seriously
diff --git a/make/common.pm b/make/common.pm
index ba6b03f87d..742d372245 100644
--- a/make/common.pm
+++ b/make/common.pm
@@ -68,6 +68,7 @@ sub get_version {
 
 	# If the user has specified a distribution label then we use it in
 	# place of the label from src/version.sh or Git.
+	$version{REAL_LABEL} = $version{LABEL};
 	$version{LABEL} = shift // $version{LABEL};
 
 	# If any of these fields are missing then the user has deleted the