automake-1.14: WARNING: 'missing' script is too old or missing

[Ralf Corsepius]

Hi,

I am facing a regression with automake-1.14 against automake-1.13.4:

With this configure.ac (A stripped-down configure.ac from a real world 
use-case):
-- snip --
AC_PREREQ([2.69])
AC_INIT([autobug],[20131018.1],address@hidden)
AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR([hello.c])

# 1
# AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([foreign])

AC_TYPE_SIZE_T

# 2
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([foreign])

AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile])
AC_OUTPUT
-- snip --

Running an autoconf-2.69/automake-1.14-generated configure emits this:
# ./configure
...
checking for size_t... yes
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
/bin/sh: /home/user/missing: No such file or directory
configure: WARNING: 'missing' script is too old or missing
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /usr/bin/mkdir -p
...

With autoconf-2.69/automake-1.13.4, running configure is silent.

Apparently, this warning is related to the location of AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE 
inside of configure.ac. Activating the AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE next to "#1" 
above instead of the one next to "#2" causes this warning to go away. 
I'd guess, this is yet another case of autoconf getting confused on 
macro-ordering or a case of a missing  AC_BEFORE or similar ;)

Reproducer enclosed below.

Ralf

autobug-20131018.1.tar.xz
Description: application/xz