diff --git a/Makefile.am b/Makefile.am
index 9dd22b86a62..1cbd865e748 100644
--- a/Makefile.am
+++ b/Makefile.am
@@ -79,7 +79,15 @@ README.gz: $(top_srcdir)/README
 	-gzip -9 < $< > $@
 
 THANKS.gz: $(top_srcdir)/THANKS
-	-gzip -9 < $< > $@
+	sed -e 's/^#.*//' $< > $<.tmp # strip comments
+	sed -e '/^$$/d' $<.tmp > $<.tmp2  # strip empty lines
+	git shortlog -se 6c976bd..HEAD \
+	 | grep -v @apache.org \
+	 | sed -E 's/^[[:blank:]]{5}[[:digit:]]+[[:blank:]]/ * /' \
+	 >> $<.tmp2 # inject git authors
+	echo '\nFor a list of authors see the `AUTHORS` file.\n' >> $<.tmp2
+	-gzip -9 < $<.tmp2 > $@ # zip
+	rm $<.tmp $<.tmp2 # cleanup
 
 check: dev check-js
 	$(top_builddir)/test/etap/run $(top_srcdir)/test/etap
diff --git a/THANKS b/THANKS
index f0dccb8a939..1e065f86355 100644
--- a/THANKS
+++ b/THANKS
@@ -66,7 +66,6 @@ suggesting improvements or submitting changes. Some of these people are:
  * Lim Yue Chuan <shasderias@gmail.com>
  * David Davis <xantus@xantus.org>
  * Klaus Trainer <klaus.trainer@web.de>
- * Dale Harvey <dale@arandomurl.com>
  * Juuso Väänänen <juuso@vaananen.org>
  * Jeff Zellner <jeff.zellner@gmail.com>
  * Benjamin Young <byoung@bigbluehat.com>
@@ -92,12 +91,10 @@ suggesting improvements or submitting changes. Some of these people are:
  * Simon Leblanc <sim.leblanc+apache@gmail.com>
  * Rogutės Sparnuotos <rogutes@googlemail.com>
  * Gavin McDonald <gmcdonald@apache.org>
- * Ronny Pfannschmidt <Ronny.Pfannschmidt@gmx.de>
- * Magnus Hoff <maghoff@gmail.com>
- * Alexander Dorofeev <aka.spin@gmail.com>
- * Anthony S Baker <anthony.s.baker@gmail.com>
- * Ewan McDougall <info@mrloop.com>
- * Adam Lofts <Adam.Lofts@gmail.com>
 
-For a list of authors see the `AUTHORS` file.
+# Dear committer who merges a commit from a non-committer:
+# You don't have to manually maintain the THANKS file anymore (yay!).
+# Non-committer authors get automatically appended to THANKS and
+# moved into THANKS.gz by `make`. This note will be stripped as well.
+# Authors from commit 6c976bd and onwards are auto-inserted.