make dstcheck fails when gnulib source directory is ./gnulib

[James Youngman]

Up to this point I have been doing VPATH builds of coreutils with this layout:

foo/coreutils - the coreutils sources, from git.
foo/coreutils/gnulib - the gnulib sources, from git.  This is where
ootstrap puts it.
foo/compile - build directory; symlink to a directory on a faster filesystem

This worked for builds but not distcheck.  Unfortunately distcheck
assumes the build directory is $(top_srcdir) I think.    I also notice
that "make distcheck" fails with GNULIB_SRCDIR in its default
position:

[...]
c -o setuidgid.o setuidgid.c
mv -f .deps/setuidgid.Tpo .deps/setuidgid.Po
gcc -std=gnu99  -Wdeclaration-after-statement -Werror  -Wl,--as-needed
-o setuidgid setuidgid.o ../lib/libcoreutils.a  ../lib/libcoreutils.a
gcc -std=gnu99  -I. -I../lib  -I../lib   -Wdeclaration-after-statement
-Werror -MT su.o -MD -MP -MF .deps/su.Tpo -c -o su.o su.c
mv -f .deps/su.Tpo .deps/su.Po
gcc -std=gnu99  -Wdeclaration-after-statement -Werror  -Wl,--as-needed
-o su su.o ../lib/libcoreutils.a  ../lib/libcoreutils.a -lcrypt
make[4]: Leaving directory `/home/james/source/GNU/coreutils/coreutils/src-c89'
make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/james/source/GNU/coreutils/coreutils/src-c89'
./gnulib/ChangeLog:38198:Copyright (C) 1997-2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
./gnulib/ChangeLog:38199:Copying and distribution of this file, with
or without modification,
./gnulib/ChangeLog:38200:are permitted provided the copyright notice
and this notice are preserved.
Makefile.maint: found unexpected prefix in a ChangeLog
make[2]: *** [sc_changelog] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/james/source/GNU/coreutils/coreutils'
make[1]: *** [distcheck-hook] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/james/source/GNU/coreutils/coreutils'
make: *** [distcheck] Error 2


If I fix that by moving the gnulib directory and re-running bootstrap
and config.status --recheck, next I fall over the fact that
Makefile.maint assumes I have an archive of previous releases:

release_archive_dir ?= ../release

Giving rise to...

sed -n '/:/p' ../AUTHORS > authors-dotdot
diff authors-actual authors-dotdot && rm -f authors-actual authors-dotdot
make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/james/source/GNU/coreutils/coreutils/src'
make[2]: *** No rule to make target `../release', needed by
`my-distcheck'.  Stop.
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/james/source/GNU/coreutils/coreutils'
make[1]: *** [distcheck-hook] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/james/source/GNU/coreutils/coreutils'
make: *** [distcheck] Error 2

As far as I can see, it eases life for the maintainers and probably
produces better code if contributors successfully run "make distcheck"
before sending patches.   But would it be possible then for
README-hacking to set out how I should organise the source directory
(and other environment I suppose)  to make "make distcheck" work?

Thanks,
James.