Distribution error: 'help2man' is required, despite having man page

[Assaf Gordon]

Hello,

It seems like there's discrepancies in the generated "tar" file after "make 
dist" regarding man page generation.

Goes like this:

1. Step one: generate tarball, on a build machine with 'help2man'
    $ which help2man >/dev/null && echo ok
    ok
    $ git clone git://git.savannah.gnu.org/hello.git
    $ cd hello
    $ ./bootstrap && ./configure && make && make dist
    $ ls hello-*.tar.gz
    hello-2.9.31-fa3c.tar.gz

2. The build requires "help2man", and uses it to generate "hello.1" (which is 
expected).
It is included in the tar file:
    $ tar -tzvf hello-2.9.31-fa3c.tar.gz | grep 'hello\.1$'
    -r--r--r-- 0/0            1397 2014-03-20 21:55 hello-2.9.31-fa3c/hello.1

3. Now, build "hello" from the tar file on a machine *without* "help2man"

    $ which help2man >/dev/null && echo remove help2man for this test || echo ok
    ok
    $ tar -xf hello-2.9.31-fa3c.tar.gz
    $ cd hello-2.9.31-fa3c
    $ ls *.1
    hello.1
    $ ./configure
    $ make
    <...>
    /bin/bash /home/gordon/temp/hello-2.9.31-fa3c/build-aux/missing --run 
help2man --include=./man/hello.x ./hello -o hello.1-t
    /home/gordon/temp/hello-2.9.31-fa3c/build-aux/missing: line 52: help2man: 
command not found
    WARNING: `help2man' is missing on your system.  You should only need it if
         you modified a dependency of a manual page.  You may need the
         `Help2man' package in order for those modifications to take
         effect.  You can get `Help2man' from any GNU archive site.
    chmod a=r hello.1-t
    mv -f hello.1-t hello.1
 
    <...GNU Make ignores this error and continues, but see below - other 'makes' do not continue ...>

    $ cat hello.1
    .ab help2man is required to generate this page



My "issue" is this:

1. The man page already existed in tar file - if "help2man" is not found - is 
it possible not to try to regenerate it ?

2. On common Linuxes with "GNU Make 3.81" this error is somehow ignored, so 
"make" continues and succeeds and returns exit code 0.

On other systems, possibly with another 'make', it stops after this error and 
the build fails (sorry for the vagueness but I do not have direct access to 
those machines - these are used for automatic build-tests),  like so:
===
/var/opt/buildslaves/buildslave-ec2-2/buildbot-install-test-test-tool-shed-py27/build/test/install_and_test_tool_shed_repositories/tool_dependency_definitions/tmp/tmpTGoWBe/tmp-toolshed-mtd7bEiVb/compute-1.0.3/build-aux/missing:
 line 81: help2man: command not found
WARNING: 'help2man' is missing on your system.
         You should only need it if you modified a dependency of a man page.
         You may want to install the GNU Help2man package:
         <http://www.gnu.org/software/help2man/>;
make[2]: *** [compute.1] Error 127
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make: *** [all] Error 2
===
(The error mentions "compute" instead of "hello" but the autotools files are based 
exactly on "GNU-hello".

This error is reproducible on FreeBSD 10 with the FreeBSD native 'make':
===
/bin/sh /usr/home/gordon/gogo/hello-2.9.31-fa3c/build-aux/missing help2man
                     --include=./man/hello.x ./hello -o hello.1-t
/usr/home/gordon/gogo/hello-2.9.31-fa3c/build-aux/missing: help2man: not found
WARNING: 'help2man' is missing on your system.
         You should only need it if you modified a dependency of a man page.
         You may want to install the GNU Help2man package:
         <http://www.gnu.org/software/help2man/>
*** Error code 127

Stop.
make[2]: stopped in /usr/home/gordon/gogo/hello-2.9.31-fa3c
*** Error code 1

Stop.
make[1]: stopped in /usr/home/gordon/gogo/hello-2.9.31-fa3c
*** Error code 1

Stop.
make: stopped in /usr/home/gordon/gogo/hello-2.9.31-fa3c
===


What's the recommended fix ?

Thanks,
 -gordon