problems with node Utilities in Makefiles

[Stepan Kasal]

Hi,
  the node (standards)Utilities in Makefiles
was brought to my attention (by Karel Zak).

I noticed many inconsistencies between the standards and their most
prominent implementation, Autoconf + Automake:

1) we should add "awk" to the list of alowed utils, as current CVS
Autoconf generates configure scripts that use awk to perform the
file instantiation.  (Previously, this was done by sed.)

2) "make dist" in Automake-generated makefiles depends on "find and
chmod" to remove the distdir.

3) If you use the Automake option dist-bzip2, then "make dist" uses
bzip2, not gzip.  Likevise for Automake options dist-zip, dist-tarZ.
If there options are _meant_ to breach GCS, like, e.g. the "foreign"
option, the Automake manual shall note this.

4) Is it still adequate to say about "mkdir -p" that
        most systems don't support it.
What about
        some systems don't support it.
?

IMVHO all these issues should be resolved by changing the standard.
If you agree with that, I can prepare a patch.

Thanks,
        Stepan Kasal