A sample AFNI.version file is shown below

AFNI_2006_06_30_1332
no date given
motd=MOTD/MOTD_2006_Apr_07.txt

The first line is the version string.

The second line is there for older versions of AFNI, which expected
a date string (DD MM YY, I think) there.

Succeeding lines should be of the form "name=value".  At present, the
only "name" looked for is "motd".  This should be the name of a file
(relative to http://afni.nimh.nih.gov/afni/) to fetch for the MOTD.
** N.B.: You cannot make this a fixed string (e.g., to MOTD.txt) and
         get the MOTD to work.  When AFNI fetches AFNI.version, it
         checks if the "motd" string value is the same as the last
         time it checked (cf. file ~/.afni.vctime).  If you keep the
         value as "MOTD.txt", then AFNI will not ever fetch the MOTD
         again after it gets it the first time!