Building xemacs-21.5.18: Buffer is read-only: #<buffer "finder-inf.el">

I tried to build xemacs-21.5.18 from the source tarball using the
commands

% ./configure i386-redhat-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr --exec-prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/bin --datadir=/usr/share --libdir=/usr/lib --mandir=/usr/share/man/man1 --infodir=/usr/share/info --with-gpm=no --with-sound=native --with-pop --mail-locking=lockf --with-clash-detection --debug=yes --with-mule=no --with-database=berkdb --with-ldap=yes --with-hesiod=no --with-canna=yes --with-wnn=yes --with-xim=xlib --with-athena=3d --with-widgets=athena --with-menubars=lucid --with-scrollbars=lucid --with-dialogs=athena --with-msw=no --with-xfs=yes --pdump
% make -C lib-src
% make src/Emacs.ad.h
% make -C src

But the last of these failed with

Generating custom-load.el...

Compiling /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES/xemacs-21.5.18/lisp/custom-load.el...
Wrote /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES/xemacs-21.5.18/lisp/custom-load.elc
Building finder database ...
rm -f /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES/xemacs-21.5.18/src/../lisp/finder-inf.el
./xemacs -no-packages -batch	-eval "(setq finder-compile-keywords-quiet t)" \
	-l finder -f finder-compile-keywords

  Requiring finder-inf... (file finder-inf.el is newer)

xemacs exiting.
Buffer is read-only: #<buffer "finder-inf.el">make: *** [/usr/src/redhat/SOURCES/xemacs-21.5.18/src/../lisp/finder-inf.el] Error 255
make: Leaving directory `/home/usr_src/redhat/SOURCES/xemacs-21.5.18/src'


I looked for this error message and found the thread
<http://news.gmane.org/group/gmane.emacs.xemacs.beta/thread=8560/force_load=t>,
but I don't fully understand what it is talking about.

Because I have xemacs already installed on my system I had a copy of
finder-inf.el and its .elc file in /usr/share/xemacs-21.5-b18/.  I
tried getting rid of those, but 'make -C src' still gives the same
error.  FWIW, I am building xemacs as non-root.

Please let me know if you're able to reproduce this.

-- 
Ed Avis <[email protected]>