bug#77852: AM_RUN_LOG not found due to ustar by default

    Is there a way to get more visibility into what autom4te is doing?

autom4te --help lists various options (at a glance: --verbose, --debug,
--trace=AM_TRY_LOG, who knows what else). I've never actually understood
autom4te in the slightest, sorry to say. Maybe best to bring it up on
[email protected]? Although some of the autoconf developers are here
on bug-automake, not all.

    The only failure case is when our source tree has been reconfigured
    with 1.17.0

Maybe it's a problem with autoreconf, another autoconf tool, though
admittedly that doesn't seem likely. --thanks, karl.