bad day for cvs?

i found that the debian binary (0.4.6-26) is lacking the ability to
handle away messages of the buddies.  The wrong messages with the wrong
people.  The changelog indicates that the latest version is 0.4.6-31 and
that it 

- Allow custom messages to be non-away messages

- Send custom message to chat rooms (IRC)
- Fix indentation in Jabber
- Reduce dependency on gtk for headers
- Add plugin to handle custom message status from a file

i am hoping that the last fix is the one that will fix the problem that i am having.  well i can't locate that version 
so i assume that is the cvs is the version i am looking for.  well i can't tell you yet.  i follow the instructions
located at http://ayttm.sourceforge.net/cvs.shtml and i get as far as

$ cvs -d:pserver:[email protected]:/cvsroot/ayttm login
CVS password: [just press Enter]
$ cvs -z3 -d:pserver:[email protected]:/cvsroot/ayttm co ayttm
$ cd ayttm
$ ./gen
$ ./configure (--enable-xft for antialiasing, --help to see other parameters)
$ make

where i get the following error:
I/usr/include/freetype2 -I/usr/X11R6/include -I../src -c main.c
In file included from main.c:54:
plugin.h:28:18: ltdl.h: No such file or directory
In file included from main.c:54:
plugin.h:45: error: syntax error before "lt_dlhandle"
plugin.h:45: warning: no semicolon at end of struct or union
plugin.h:51: error: syntax error before '}' token
plugin.h:51: warning: data definition has no type or storage class
plugin.h:70: error: syntax error before '*' token
plugin.h:70: warning: data definition has no type or storage class
plugin.h:77: error: syntax error before '*' token
make[3]: *** [main.o] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/joe/dls/ayttm/src'
make[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/joe/dls/ayttm/src'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/joe/dls/ayttm'
make: *** [all-recursive-am] Error 2

i know that this is a long post and it is my first so forgive the length but i was hoping to maybe get some help 
for this bug.