diff --git a/contrib/ChangeLog b/contrib/ChangeLog
index 16bd6e1fab4..74e41d87e1b 100644
--- a/contrib/ChangeLog
+++ b/contrib/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+2005-03-18  Alexandre Oliva  <aoliva@redhat.com>
+
+	* gcc_update (silent): Unset instead of initializing to null.
+
 2005-03-18  Andreas Schwab  <schwab@suse.de>
 
 	* gcc_update (apply_patch): Properly quote $1.
diff --git a/contrib/gcc_update b/contrib/gcc_update
index dfe35dbdc16..cab6c47ec12 100755
--- a/contrib/gcc_update
+++ b/contrib/gcc_update
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ self=$0
 
 # This function prints its arguments to standard output unless
 # "silent" is set.
-silent=
+unset silent
 chat () {
     if [ -z "$silent" ]; then
         echo "$@"