The NEWS file is missing from the automake package.  While it's 50+kB and will
make the package about 20kB bigger, it contains very useful information when
working with automake and trying to figure out "from which versions of automake
onwards does this work?".

Also, using the %check section in the makefile would provide a way to q'n'd'ly
disable the long-taking check suite when testing local changes (--define 'check
exit 0').