adding gnulib's sys_wait module to groff made Automake angry

[G. Branden Robinson]

[please CC the groff list on replies]

I bisected a problem down to this change:

ef6522ab5bf4420cbb755cdb76caf019777c6095 is the first bad commit
commit ef6522ab5bf4420cbb755cdb76caf019777c6095
Author: G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>
Date:   Sun Apr 16 00:50:35 2023 -0500

    bootstrap.conf: Add "sys_wait" module.

    * bootstrap.conf (gnulib_modules): Add "sys_wait" module.  MinGW does
      not provide "sys/wait.h", which we require in
      src/preproc/html/pre-html.cpp since commit 11137209ed, 27 June.

 ChangeLog      | 6 ++++++
 bootstrap.conf | 3 ++-
 2 files changed, 8 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

The change is what you'd expect:

$ git show bootstrap.conf
commit ef6522ab5bf4420cbb755cdb76caf019777c6095 (HEAD, refs/bisect/bad)
Author: G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>
Date:   Sun Apr 16 00:50:35 2023 -0500

    bootstrap.conf: Add "sys_wait" module.

    * bootstrap.conf (gnulib_modules): Add "sys_wait" module.  MinGW does
      not provide "sys/wait.h", which we require in
      src/preproc/html/pre-html.cpp since commit 11137209ed, 27 June.

diff --git a/bootstrap.conf b/bootstrap.conf
index 48a27dcbc..7a2099fb8 100644
--- a/bootstrap.conf
+++ b/bootstrap.conf
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
 # along with this program.  If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.


-# gnulib m4 macro
+# gnulib m4 macro
 m4_base=gnulib_m4

 # gnulib C source files
@@ -44,6 +44,7 @@ gnulib_modules="
     vsnprintf
     stdbool-c99
     stdint
+    sys_wait
 "

 # Name of the Makefile.am

The Automake anger looks like this.

autoreconf: Entering directory `.'
autoreconf: configure.ac: not using Gettext
autoreconf: running: aclocal -I gnulib_m4 --force -I m4 -I gnulib_m4
autoreconf: configure.ac: tracing
autoreconf: configure.ac: not using Libtool
autoreconf: running: /usr/bin/autoconf --include=gnulib_m4 --force
autoreconf: running: /usr/bin/autoheader --include=gnulib_m4 --force
autoreconf: running: automake --add-missing --copy --force-missing
lib/gnulib.mk:1371: error: MOSTLYCLEANDIRS must be set with '=' before using 
'+='
Makefile.am:612:   'lib/gnulib.mk' included from here
autoreconf: automake failed with exit status: 1
./bootstrap: autoreconf failed

Now, sure enough, adding

MOSTLYCLEANDIRS=

to Makefile.am right before our list of includes[1] fixes the build.

...but I'm not sure how to explain the change.

I can read the diagnostic message, but is there a reason this never
cropped up before?  Is there some auditing mode I can run automake or
autoreconf in that will detect this sort of problem before a gnulib
module sampled at random provokes it?

Regards,
Branden

[1] https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/tree/Makefile.am#n606

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