Jeff and all, i just found "by accident" that make can require autotools.
for example: from (generated) ompi/include/Makefile : $(srcdir)/mpi.h.in: $(am__configure_deps) ($(am__cd) $(top_srcdir) && $(AUTOHEADER)) rm -f stamp-h2 touch $@ and $(am__configure_deps) is a bunch (all?) of .m4 files. from a pragmatic point of view, it means that if update a m4 file, run autogen.pl and configure, then, the first invokation of make will run $(AUTOHEADER) is this a bug (and if yes, is it OMPI related) ? or is this just a minor annoyance that impacts only developers anyway ? Cheers, Gilles