The THANKS file is not a GNU standard and never has been. Automake does not require it (except in --gnits mode, which is not GNU).
As for maintain vs. standards in general, true, there is no hard and fast dividing line. I seem to recall rms explaining it once (on g-p-d) as standards being what should be done and maintain as how to do it, FWIW. I couldn't exactly grasp that :). Myself, I've always thought of it more or less as maintain being about administrative, legal, and other non-code matters, while standards is about technical issues. Anyway, it's certainly not a matter of what is a [GNU] "standard" or not. Some of the stuff in maintain is more important for GNU maintainers to follow (I'm thinking of the legal junk) than some of the stuff in standards (e.g., spaces before function calls). k
