diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index ba4f7e03b76ac8..5c8f03ef924482 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -197,7 +197,7 @@ docclean:
 RAWVER=$(shell $(PYTHON) tools/getnodeversion.py)
 VERSION=v$(RAWVER)
 FULLVERSION=$(VERSION)
-RELEASE=$(shell $(PYTHON) tools/getnodeisrelease.py)
+RELEASE=($shell grep "#define NODE_VERSION_IS_RELEASE" src/node_version.h | sed 's/[^0-9]//g')
 PLATFORM=$(shell uname | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')
 NPMVERSION=v$(shell cat deps/npm/package.json | grep '"version"' | sed 's/^[^:]*: "\([^"]*\)",.*/\1/')
 ifeq ($(findstring x86_64,$(shell uname -m)),x86_64)
diff --git a/tools/getnodeisrelease.py b/tools/getnodeisrelease.py
deleted file mode 100644
index a23ad2cf2443e5..00000000000000
--- a/tools/getnodeisrelease.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,11 +0,0 @@
-import sys,os,re
-
-node_version_h = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), '..', 'src',
-    'node_version.h')
-
-f = open(node_version_h)
-
-for line in f:
-  if re.match('#define NODE_VERSION_IS_RELEASE', line):
-    release = int(line.split()[2])
-    print release