diff --git a/.gitmodules b/.gitmodules
index f2da17ed7..abb773538 100644
--- a/.gitmodules
+++ b/.gitmodules
@@ -1,6 +1,3 @@
-[submodule "tools/git2cl"]
-	path = tools/git2cl
-	url = https://git.savannah.nongnu.org/git/git2cl.git
 [submodule "jimtcl"]
 	path = jimtcl
 	url = https://github.com/msteveb/jimtcl.git
diff --git a/Makefile.am b/Makefile.am
index ab0a2373d..155a2b3bb 100644
--- a/Makefile.am
+++ b/Makefile.am
@@ -123,14 +123,13 @@ TCL_PATH = tcl
 TCL_FILES = find $(srcdir)/$(TCL_PATH) -name '*.cfg' -o -name '*.tcl' -o -name '*.txt' | \
 		sed -e 's,^$(srcdir)/$(TCL_PATH),,'
 
-# Without the PERL_UNICODE="IO" workaround below when running git2cl, you get several
-# "Wide character" warnings and you also risk an invalid character encoding in
-# the generated ChangeLog file. For more information, see this bug report:
-#   Warning "Wide character in print"
-#   https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?65689
+# The git log command below generates many empty text lines with only some space characters
+# for indentation purposes, so use sed to trim all trailing whitespace.
 dist-hook:
 	if test -d $(srcdir)/.git -a \( ! -e $(distdir)/ChangeLog -o -w $(distdir)/ChangeLog \) ; then \
-		git --git-dir $(srcdir)/.git log | PERL_UNICODE="IO" $(srcdir)/tools/git2cl/git2cl > $(distdir)/ChangeLog ; \
+		git --git-dir $(srcdir)/.git log --date=short --pretty="format:%ad  %aN <%aE>%n%n%w(0,4,6)* %B" \
+		| sed 's/[[:space:]]*$$//' > $(distdir)/ChangeLog.tmp && \
+		mv $(distdir)/ChangeLog.tmp $(distdir)/ChangeLog; \
 	fi
 	for i in $$($(TCL_FILES)); do \
 		j="$(distdir)/$(TCL_PATH)/$$i" && \
diff --git a/tools/git2cl b/tools/git2cl
deleted file mode 160000
index 8373c9f74..000000000
--- a/tools/git2cl
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-Subproject commit 8373c9f74993e218a08819cbcdbab3f3564bbeba