automake-1.7.1 is out and it would be nice when the shipped package would be upgraded. For backward-compatibility reasons, a new automake16 package should be added probably.
I would like to ship Automake 1.7 now too. However this may have to wait a bit, until the impact on building other packages in the distro is ascertained. The number of versions of automake is starting to become a problem - we already have 3 in 8.0, if care is not taken we could end up with a dozen in a few years time!
*** Bug 81765 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
An automake-1.7.3 package has been made along with automake16. They should appear in rawhide before long.
Confirmed existence of the following in rawhide: automake-1.6.3-5.noarch.rpm automake-1.7.3-1.noarch.rpm automake14-1.4p6-5.1.noarch.rpm automake15-1.5-6.noarch.rpm automake16-1.6.3-1.noarch.rpm This seems to fulfill the request, resolving as fixed in rawhide.