RFE: Generating a stub Makefile

[Mark Heily]

Currently, Autoconf does not generate a top-level Makefile when  
running 'make dist'. This means that users are forced to type './ 
configure' before typing 'make'.
Otherwise, you get the error:

        make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found.  Stop.

This seems I would like Autoconf to generate a stub Makefile to  
include in the top-level of each tarball. The purpose of this stub  
Makefile is to call ./configure
to generate the real Makefile and then re-invoke make(1) using the  
real Makefile.

Here's a simple example of a stub Makefile:
---------------------------------------
all:
        ./configure
        make

install:
        ./configure
        make install
---------------------------------------

This idea could be extended to include other targets such as dist,  
clean, etc.

My intention is to save typing for power users and make it easier for  
novice users to build programs from source. This effectively hides  
the Autoconf/Automake mechanism unless someone wants to pass specific  
options to the configure script.

Any thoughts?

-Mark