I've just synced my CVS version of gnulib and it includes that ChangeLog entry. I am using Autoconf version 2.61 and Automake version 1.9.6.
My generated aclocal.m4 file wants to substiture mkdir_p (courtesy of AM_PROG_MKDIR_P) but doesn't define AC_PROG_MKDIR_P. Nevertheless my gnulib-common.m4 file is indeed at serial 2 and the gl_INIT in gnulib/m4/gnulib-comp.m4 does indeed invoke AC_PROG_MKDIR_P. However, I think the problem is that on this system, the Makefile.in file is not actually using @MKDIR_P@ :- (this gnulib directory here is generated by gnulib-tool from the CVS head) findutils$ find gnulib -exec grep MKDIR_P /dev/null {} \; gnulib/lib/Makefile.in: $(MKDIR_P) sys gnulib/lib/Makefile.am: $(MKDIR_P) sys gnulib/m4/gnulib-common.m4:# AC_PROG_MKDIR_P gnulib/m4/gnulib-common.m4:# is a backport of autoconf-2.60's AC_PROG_MKDIR_P. gnulib/m4/gnulib-common.m4:m4_ifdef([AC_PROG_MKDIR_P], [], [ gnulib/m4/gnulib-common.m4: AC_DEFUN([AC_PROG_MKDIR_P], gnulib/m4/gnulib-common.m4: [AC_REQUIRE([AM_PROG_MKDIR_P])dnl defined by automake gnulib/m4/gnulib-common.m4: MKDIR_P='$(mkdir_p)' gnulib/m4/gnulib-common.m4: AC_SUBST([MKDIR_P])])]) gnulib/m4/intl.m4: AC_REQUIRE([AM_PROG_MKDIR_P])dnl defined by automake gnulib/m4/po.m4: AC_REQUIRE([AM_PROG_MKDIR_P])dnl defined by automake gnulib/m4/gnulib-comp.m4: AC_PROG_MKDIR_P Unfortunately, I'm too tired right now to diagnose further, it's 00:44. Thanks, James.