--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,14 @@
+2011-10-30  Jim Meyering  <meyering@redhat.com>
+
+	GNUmakefile: reenable "make syntax-check" for most projects
+	Since Friday's commit 05e2d798, "maint.mk: don't maintain a second
+	build-aux variable", "syntax-check" would do nothing but succeed with
+	the "No version control files detected..." diagnostic (unless you
+	happened to override _build-aux via cfg.mk).
+	* top/GNUmakefile (_autoreconf, _build-aux): Move default definitions
+	to precede inclusion of maint.mk.  Otherwise, these variables would
+	be used undefined in any project that does not override the default.
+
 2011-10-29  Dmitry V. Levin  <ldv@altlinux.org>
 
 	gitlog-to-changelog: treat a message with only blank lines as empty.

--- a/top/GNUmakefile
+++ b/top/GNUmakefile
@@ -45,12 +45,13 @@
 
 # Some projects override e.g., _autoreconf here.
 -include $(srcdir)/cfg.mk
-include $(srcdir)/maint.mk
 
 # Allow cfg.mk to override these.
 _build-aux ?= build-aux
 _autoreconf ?= autoreconf -v
 
+include $(srcdir)/maint.mk
+
 # Ensure that $(VERSION) is up to date for dist-related targets, but not
 # for others: rerunning autoreconf and recompiling everything isn't cheap.
 _have-git-version-gen := \