diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index 85fa8a2..d97f40d 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -32,6 +32,7 @@ package. It includes:
 
 Djrill is released under the BSD license. It is tested against Django 1.3--1.8
 (including Python 3 with Django 1.6+, and PyPy support with Django 1.5+).
+Djrill uses `semantic versioning <http://semver.org/>`_.
 
 .. END shared-intro
 
diff --git a/djrill/_version.py b/djrill/_version.py
index f556477..c95923f 100644
--- a/djrill/_version.py
+++ b/djrill/_version.py
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
-VERSION = (1, 4, 0, 'dev1')  # Remove the 'dev1' component in release branches
-__version__ = '.'.join([str(x) for x in VERSION])
+VERSION = (1, 4, 0, 'dev')  # Remove the 'dev' component in release branches
+__version__ = '.'.join([str(x) for x in VERSION[:3]])  # major.minor.patch
+if len(VERSION) > 3:  # x.y.z-pre.release (note the hyphen)
+    __version__ += '-' + '.'.join([str(x) for x in VERSION[3:]])
 __minor_version__ = '.'.join([str(x) for x in VERSION[:2]])  # Sphinx's X.Y "version"
diff --git a/docs/history.rst b/docs/history.rst
index 0310946..448ed65 100644
--- a/docs/history.rst
+++ b/docs/history.rst
@@ -1,6 +1,13 @@
 Release Notes
 =============
 
+Djrill practices `semantic versioning <semver>`_.
+Among other things, this means that minor updates
+(1.x to 1.y) should always be backwards-compatible,
+and breaking changes will always increment the
+major version number (1.x to 2.0).
+
+
 Version 1.4 (development):
 
 * Django 1.8 beta support
@@ -98,3 +105,5 @@ Version 0.2:
   specify Mandrill-specific options. This is no longer needed -- Mandrill
   options can now be set directly on a Django ``EmailMessage`` object or any
   subclass. (Existing code can continue to use ``DjrillMessage``.)
+
+.. _semver: http://semver.org