diff --git a/hack/lib/version.sh b/hack/lib/version.sh
index 712c2b2a..04d61d17 100644
--- a/hack/lib/version.sh
+++ b/hack/lib/version.sh
@@ -14,45 +14,18 @@
 # See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 # limitations under the License.
 
-# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-# Version management helpers.  These functions help to set, save and load the
-# following variables:
 #
-#    KUBE_GIT_COMMIT - The git commit id corresponding to this
-#          source code.
-#    KUBE_GIT_TREE_STATE - "clean" indicates no changes since the git commit id
-#        "dirty" indicates source code changes after the git commit id
-#        "archive" indicates the tree was produced by 'git archive'
-#    KUBE_GIT_VERSION - "vX.Y" used to indicate the last release version.
-#    KUBE_GIT_MAJOR - The major part of the version
-#    KUBE_GIT_MINOR - The minor component of the version
+# This has been changed from kube's default version.sh to expect KUBE_GIT_VERSION to be set
+# by the caller. If it is set, it must be a semver version number, and it will be included
+# in the result. If it is not set, then defaults indicating that the version is unknown will
+# be included in the result.
+#
+# These changes are to allow the CI build steps to set the version number at build time
+# without using the original behavior of this script, which was to look at previous git
+# tags to guess the version number.
+#
 
-# Grovels through git to set a set of env variables.
-#
-# If KUBE_GIT_VERSION_FILE, this function will load from that file instead of
-# querying git.
 kube::version::get_version_vars() {
-  if [[ -n ${KUBE_GIT_VERSION_FILE-} ]]; then
-    kube::version::load_version_vars "${KUBE_GIT_VERSION_FILE}"
-    return
-  fi
-
-  # If the kubernetes source was exported through git archive, then
-  # we likely don't have a git tree, but these magic values may be filled in.
-  # shellcheck disable=SC2016,SC2050
-  # Disabled as we're not expanding these at runtime, but rather expecting
-  # that another tool may have expanded these and rewritten the source (!)
-  if [[ '$Format:%%$' == "%" ]]; then
-    KUBE_GIT_COMMIT='$Format:%H$'
-    KUBE_GIT_TREE_STATE="archive"
-    # When a 'git archive' is exported, the '$Format:%D$' below will look
-    # something like 'HEAD -> release-1.8, tag: v1.8.3' where then 'tag: '
-    # can be extracted from it.
-    if [[ '$Format:%D$' =~ tag:\ (v[^ ,]+) ]]; then
-     KUBE_GIT_VERSION="${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"
-    fi
-  fi
-
   local git=(git --work-tree "${KUBE_ROOT}")
 
   if [[ -n ${KUBE_GIT_COMMIT-} ]] || KUBE_GIT_COMMIT=$("${git[@]}" rev-parse "HEAD^{commit}" 2>/dev/null); then
@@ -65,28 +38,20 @@ kube::version::get_version_vars() {
       fi
     fi
 
-    # Use git describe to find the version based on tags.
-    if [[ -n ${KUBE_GIT_VERSION-} ]] || KUBE_GIT_VERSION=$("${git[@]}" describe --tags --match='v*' --abbrev=14 "${KUBE_GIT_COMMIT}^{commit}" 2>/dev/null); then
-      # This translates the "git describe" to an actual semver.org
-      # compatible semantic version that looks something like this:
-      #   v1.1.0-alpha.0.6+84c76d1142ea4d
-      #
-      # xTODO: We continue calling this "git version" because so many
-      # downstream consumers are expecting it there.
-      #
-      # These regexes are painful enough in sed...
-      # We don't want to do them in pure shell, so disable SC2001
-      # shellcheck disable=SC2001
-      DASHES_IN_VERSION=$(echo "${KUBE_GIT_VERSION}" | sed "s/[^-]//g")
-      if [[ "${DASHES_IN_VERSION}" == "---" ]] ; then
-        # shellcheck disable=SC2001
-        # We have distance to subversion (v1.1.0-subversion-1-gCommitHash)
-        KUBE_GIT_VERSION=$(echo "${KUBE_GIT_VERSION}" | sed "s/-\([0-9]\{1,\}\)-g\([0-9a-f]\{14\}\)$/.\1\+\2/")
-      elif [[ "${DASHES_IN_VERSION}" == "--" ]] ; then
-        # shellcheck disable=SC2001
-        # We have distance to base tag (v1.1.0-1-gCommitHash)
-        KUBE_GIT_VERSION=$(echo "${KUBE_GIT_VERSION}" | sed "s/-g\([0-9a-f]\{14\}\)$/+\1/")
+    # If KUBE_GIT_VERSION is supplied and is not a valid Semantic Version, then refuse to build.
+    if [[ -n "${KUBE_GIT_VERSION:-""}" ]]; then
+
+      if ! [[ "${KUBE_GIT_VERSION}" =~ ^v([0-9]+)\.([0-9]+)(\.[0-9]+)?(-[0-9A-Za-z.-]+)?(\+[0-9A-Za-z.-]+)?$ ]]; then
+        echo "KUBE_GIT_VERSION should be a valid Semantic Version starting with a \"v\". Current value: ${KUBE_GIT_VERSION}"
+        echo "Please see more details here: https://semver.org"
+        exit 1
       fi
+
+      if [[ "${KUBE_GIT_VERSION}" =~ ^v([0-9]+)\.([0-9]+)(\.[0-9]+)?([-].*)?([+].*)?$ ]]; then
+        KUBE_GIT_MAJOR=${BASH_REMATCH[1]}
+        KUBE_GIT_MINOR=${BASH_REMATCH[2]}
+      fi
+
       if [[ "${KUBE_GIT_TREE_STATE}" == "dirty" ]]; then
         # git describe --dirty only considers changes to existing files, but
         # that is problematic since new untracked .go files affect the build,
@@ -94,56 +59,15 @@ kube::version::get_version_vars() {
         KUBE_GIT_VERSION+="-dirty"
       fi
 
-
-      # Try to match the "git describe" output to a regex to try to extract
-      # the "major" and "minor" versions and whether this is the exact tagged
-      # version or whether the tree is between two tagged versions.
-      if [[ "${KUBE_GIT_VERSION}" =~ ^v([0-9]+)\.([0-9]+)(\.[0-9]+)?([-].*)?([+].*)?$ ]]; then
-        KUBE_GIT_MAJOR=${BASH_REMATCH[1]}
-        KUBE_GIT_MINOR=${BASH_REMATCH[2]}
-        if [[ -n "${BASH_REMATCH[4]}" ]]; then
-          KUBE_GIT_MINOR+="+"
-        fi
-      fi
-
-      # If KUBE_GIT_VERSION is not a valid Semantic Version, then refuse to build.
-      if ! [[ "${KUBE_GIT_VERSION}" =~ ^v([0-9]+)\.([0-9]+)(\.[0-9]+)?(-[0-9A-Za-z.-]+)?(\+[0-9A-Za-z.-]+)?$ ]]; then
-          echo "KUBE_GIT_VERSION should be a valid Semantic Version. Current value: ${KUBE_GIT_VERSION}"
-          echo "Please see more details here: https://semver.org"
-          exit 1
-      fi
+    else
+      # KUBE_GIT_VERSION was not supplied
+      KUBE_GIT_VERSION='?.?.?'
+      KUBE_GIT_MAJOR='?'
+      KUBE_GIT_MINOR='?'
     fi
   fi
 }
 
-# Saves the environment flags to $1
-kube::version::save_version_vars() {
-  local version_file=${1-}
-  [[ -n ${version_file} ]] || {
-    echo "!!! Internal error.  No file specified in kube::version::save_version_vars"
-    return 1
-  }
-
-  cat <<EOF >"${version_file}"
-KUBE_GIT_COMMIT='${KUBE_GIT_COMMIT-}'
-KUBE_GIT_TREE_STATE='${KUBE_GIT_TREE_STATE-}'
-KUBE_GIT_VERSION='${KUBE_GIT_VERSION-}'
-KUBE_GIT_MAJOR='${KUBE_GIT_MAJOR-}'
-KUBE_GIT_MINOR='${KUBE_GIT_MINOR-}'
-EOF
-}
-
-# Loads up the version variables from file $1
-kube::version::load_version_vars() {
-  local version_file=${1-}
-  [[ -n ${version_file} ]] || {
-    echo "!!! Internal error.  No file specified in kube::version::load_version_vars"
-    return 1
-  }
-
-  source "${version_file}"
-}
-
 # Prints the value that needs to be passed to the -ldflags parameter of go build
 # in order to set the Kubernetes based on the git tree status.
 # IMPORTANT: if you update any of these, also update the lists in