I thought about it and decided to do the same think as ZF in Zend_Version, they have static class there and even keep version as constant in this class. I see the value of point in Steve's link and according to version checking/caching mechanism it's ok with me, but still think that keeping local version/release in constant may be good idea (keeping BC of course). version.php is useful but not really elegant when we shift multiple features to OO design. Thoughts?