--- a/configure.ac	Wed Mar 04 17:34:25 2015 -0500
+++ b/configure.ac	Thu Mar 05 10:12:26 2015 -0500
@@ -19,21 +19,21 @@
 ### <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 
 AC_PREREQ([2.63])
-AC_INIT([GNU Octave], [3.9.1+], [http://octave.org/bugs.html], [octave])
+AC_INIT([GNU Octave], [4.0.0-rc1], [http://octave.org/bugs.html], [octave])
 
 dnl Note that the version number is duplicated here and in AC_INIT
 dnl because AC_INIT requires it to be static, not computed from
 dnl shell variables.
-OCTAVE_MAJOR_VERSION=3
-OCTAVE_MINOR_VERSION=9
-OCTAVE_PATCH_VERSION=0+
+OCTAVE_MAJOR_VERSION=4
+OCTAVE_MINOR_VERSION=0
+OCTAVE_PATCH_VERSION=0-rc1
 
 dnl PACKAGE_VERSION is set by the AC_INIT VERSION arg
 OCTAVE_VERSION="$PACKAGE_VERSION"
 
 OCTAVE_COPYRIGHT="Copyright (C) 2015 John W. Eaton and others."
 
-OCTAVE_RELEASE_DATE="2014-07-01"
+OCTAVE_RELEASE_DATE="2015-03-05"
 
 ## The "API version" is used as a way of checking that interfaces in the
 ## liboctave and libinterp libraries haven't changed in a backwardly