diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index dae7525cdb..113986693f 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-pbr>=0.5.21,<1.0
 dnspython>=1.9.4
 eventlet>=0.9.15
 greenlet>=0.3.1
diff --git a/swift/__init__.py b/swift/__init__.py
index 7e8fb7b8dc..9d0e8896f7 100644
--- a/swift/__init__.py
+++ b/swift/__init__.py
@@ -16,13 +16,22 @@
 import os
 import gettext
 
-import pbr.version
-
-
-_version_info = pbr.version.VersionInfo('swift')
-__version__ = _version_info.release_string()
-__canonical_version__ = _version_info.version_string()
+import pkg_resources
 
+try:
+    # First, try to get our version out of PKG-INFO. If we're installed,
+    # this'll let us find our version without pulling in pbr. After all, if
+    # we're installed on a system, we're not in a Git-managed source tree, so
+    # pbr doesn't really buy us anything.
+    __version__ = __canonical_version__ = pkg_resources.get_provider(
+        pkg_resources.Requirement.parse('swift')).version
+except pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound:
+    # No PKG-INFO? We're probably running from a checkout, then. Let pbr do
+    # its thing to figure out a version number.
+    import pbr.version
+    _version_info = pbr.version.VersionInfo('swift')
+    __version__ = _version_info.release_string()
+    __canonical_version__ = _version_info.version_string()
 
 _localedir = os.environ.get('SWIFT_LOCALEDIR')
 _t = gettext.translation('swift', localedir=_localedir, fallback=True)