Use autotools with README.md

Question

I'm using autotools for a libraries hosted on GitHub. Instead of using an ordinary `README` text file, I want to use `README.md`. When running `automake`, I get the following error ``` Makefile.am: required file `./README' not found ``` Is it possible to tell autotools not to check for `README`?

Accepted Answer

Just pass the `foreign` option to automake. This tells it that your software does not conform to the typical gnu standards, and thus omitting README is not an error. Typically, this is done in `configure.ac`:

```
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([foreign])
```

but it can also be done by assigning `AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS` in Makefile.am:

```
AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS = foreign
```

Use autotools with README.md

Solution

Problem