I thought the following looked nice: NETATALK_VERSION=`cat $srcdir/VERSION` AC_INIT(netatalk, ${NETATALK_VERSION},... but then configure.in:5: warning: AC_INIT: not a literal: ${NETATALK_VERSION} Is there a way round it? Another question: AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR takes a directory - what if a package has 2 direcories full of .m4 files?! (Apparently one shared with other projects) Cheers, Patrick