Although I hate to be the person suggesting an update to a prerelease, it would be extremely nice to have the support for using automake with python modules and such, but that support doesn't exist until Nov 99 in automake cvs, about 4 months after the release of 1.4. There's a 1.4b prerelease available, but the gcc spectacle doesn't make me inclined to actually recommend putting that in *sigh* maybe pull the patch to add python support and include that? Not sure, but with the increasing amounts of python in use both in Red Hat and elsewhere, it would be nice to be able to use autofoo to do so.
Per request of the maintainers, we don't ship prereleases of automake/autoconf, as that often causes compatibility problems and headaches for everyone.