Hello automakers Currently, the strictness-related options specified with AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE in configure.ac and with AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS in Makefile.am win over those specified on the command line:
$ touch install-sh missing COPYING README AUTHORS NEWS INSTALL $ cat > configure.ac <<'END' AC_INIT([foo], [1.0]) AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([gnu]) AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile]) END $ : > Makefile.am $ aclocal $ automake --foreign Makefile.am: required file `./ChangeLog' not found $ sed -i 's/^AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE.*/AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE/' configure.ac $ echo 'AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS = gnu' > Makefile.am $ automake --foreign Makefile.am: required file `./ChangeLog' not found While this behaviour might have had its historical reasons, I think its confusing, suboptimal, and inconsistent with that of pratically all the sane Unix and GNU programs. The right precedence for *every* option would IMHO be: "command line" wins over AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS wins over AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE Regards, Stefano
