What am I missing?

[Harlan Stenn]

I have a real simple need - I want to build a simple distribution tarball
with the VERSION variable substituted into a few files.

The following fragments demonstrate the problem I'm having with the
larger/real package:

address@hidden> configure
checking for a BSD compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for mawk... no
checking for gawk... no
checking for nawk... no
checking for awk... awk
checking whether make sets ${MAKE}... yes
configure: creating ./config.status
./config.status: cannot create /subs.frag: permission denied
./config.status: 215: Syntax error: "fi" unexpected
address@hidden>

Here are the 3 files needed to reproduce this problem (automake-1.5,
autoconf-2.52):

--Makefile.am:
AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS = foreign

EXTRA_DIST = README
--README.in:
Foo Version @VERSION@
--configure.ac:
AC_INIT(README.in)
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE(Foo, 2.43)

AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile, README])
AC_OUTPUT