--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+2011-01-25  John W. Eaton  <jwe@octave.org>
+
+	* autogen.sh (AUTOMAKE): Add --foreign to the automake command.
+	Check for required GNU files here instead of having automake do it.
+
 2011-01-25  John W. Eaton  <jwe@octave.org>
 
 	* Makefile.am (EXTRA_DIST): Remove ROADMAP from the list.

--- a/autogen.sh
+++ b/autogen.sh
@@ -4,7 +4,23 @@
 
 set -e
 
-AUTOMAKE="automake --warnings=no-portability"
+## Use --foreign since we auto-generate the AUTHORS file and the default
+## --gnu strictness level doesn't like it if the AUTHORS file is missing.
+
+AUTOMAKE="automake --foreign --warnings=no-portability"
+export AUTOMAKE
+
+## Check for files that automake --gnu would normally look for, except
+## AUTHORS, which we autogenerate from the documentation files along with
+## building the rest of Octave, and INSTALL, which is linked from
+## gnulib/doc/INSTALL by the bootstrap script.
+
+for f in NEWS README ChangeLog COPYING; do
+  if ! test -f $f; then
+    echo "required file $f is missing" 2>&1
+    exit 1
+  fi
+done
 
 echo "generating source lists for liboctave/Makefile..."