Dependency tracking not working on macOS

[Christoph Grüninger]

Hi autoconf community,
I am updating an Autotool-based code, that was for a couple of years 
unmaintained. I first fixed all issues with Debian and Ubuntu, then I 
fixed the macOS issues. Thanks to GitLab.com, I got a CI runner with 
macOS and using autoconf from homebrew.
Unfortunately, I am facing in issue with dependency tracking:

> config.status: executing depfiles commands
> config.status: error: in `/Users/gitlab/builds/alberta-fem/alberta3':
> config.status: error: Something went wrong bootstrapping makefile fragments
>     for automatic dependency tracking.  If GNU make was not used, consider
>     re-running the configure script with MAKE="gmake" (or whatever is
>     necessary).  You can also try re-running configure with the
>     '--disable-dependency-tracking' option to at least be able to build
>     the package (albeit without support for automatic dependency tracking).
> See `config.log' for more details

In config.log I see a couple of similar errors:

> config.status:1976: cd alberta_util/src       && sed -e '/# 
> am--include-marker/d' Makefile         | make -f - am--depfiles
> make: *** fopen (temporary file): No such file or directory.  Stop.
> config.status:1981: $? = 2
> config.status:1976: cd add_ons/libalbas/src       && sed -e '/# 
> am--include-marker/d' Makefile         | make -f - am--depfiles
> make: *** fopen (temporary file): No such file or directory.  Stop.
> config.status:1981: $? = 2

The error message is not useful, I am using GNU make from homebrew. Any 
hints what I am doing wrong?
I introduced the error, but bisecting is a difficult task, as it did not 
work on macOS for dozens of commits. But it has to do with some of my 
changes and only occurs on macOS.

Complete output and config.log:
> https://gitlab.com/alberta-fem/alberta3/-/jobs/3147136437

Complete configure.ac and all other code:
> https://gitlab.com/alberta-fem/alberta3/-/blob/feature/dependency-tracking-macos/configure.ac

Bye
Christoph

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