The automake-1.4-5 RPM in Redhat-6.1 has a typo that makes it unusable.

The fix is this:
--- automake~   Tue Jan 25 13:27:06 2000
+++ automake    Tue Jan 25 13:26:52 2000
@@ -2367,7 +2367,7 @@
        $output_rules .= "\t  d=\$(srcdir); \\\n";
     }
     $output_rules .= ("\t  if test -d \$\$d/\$\$file; then \\\n"
-                     . "\t    cp -pr \$\$/\$\$file \$(distdir)/\$\$file;
\\\n"
+                     . "\t    cp -pr \$\$d/\$\$file \$(distdir)/\$\$file;
\\\n"
                      . "\t  else \\\n"
                      . "\t    test -f \$(distdir)/\$\$file \\\n"
                      . "\t    || ln \$\$d/\$\$file \$(distdir)/\$\$file 2>
/dev/null \\\n"

Also look at the automake CVS Web:

http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/automake/automake.in.diff?r1=1.649&r2=1.650&cvsroot=automake