With the current version on Savannah, 'make distcheck' fails for me on Ubuntu 
18.04 as shown at the end of this email. This glitch seems to have been 
introduced in February 2016 by the commit "maint: dist-check.mk: remove .deps 
dirs before comparing". Although the attached patch works around the problem, I 
didn't install it as I'm puzzled as to why the 2016 patch was needed since "make 
distclean" should remove any .deps subdirectories.

...
make[4]: Leaving directory 
'/home/eggert/src/gnu/gzip/tests/torture/gzip/test/gzip-1.9.18-9c2a'
Making distclean in tests
make[4]: Entering directory 
'/home/eggert/src/gnu/gzip/tests/torture/gzip/test/gzip-1.9.18-9c2a/tests'
test -z "gzip-env.log helin-segv.log help-version.log hufts.log keep.log 
list.log memcpy-abuse.log mixed.log null-suffix-clobber.log reproducible.log 
stdin.log timestamp.log trailing-nul.log unpack-invalid.log unpack-valid.log 
upper-suffix.log z-suffix.log zdiff.log zgrep-f.log zgrep-context.log 
zgrep-signal.log znew-k.log" || rm -f gzip-env.log helin-segv.log 
help-version.log hufts.log keep.log list.log memcpy-abuse.log mixed.log 
null-suffix-clobber.log reproducible.log stdin.log timestamp.log 
trailing-nul.log unpack-invalid.log unpack-valid.log upper-suffix.log 
z-suffix.log zdiff.log zgrep-f.log zgrep-context.log zgrep-signal.log znew-k.log
test -z "gzip-env.trs helin-segv.trs help-version.trs hufts.trs keep.trs 
list.trs memcpy-abuse.trs mixed.trs null-suffix-clobber.trs reproducible.trs 
stdin.trs timestamp.trs trailing-nul.trs unpack-invalid.trs unpack-valid.trs 
upper-suffix.trs z-suffix.trs zdiff.trs zgrep-f.trs zgrep-context.trs 
zgrep-signal.trs znew-k.trs" || rm -f gzip-env.trs helin-segv.trs 
help-version.trs hufts.trs keep.trs list.trs memcpy-abuse.trs mixed.trs 
null-suffix-clobber.trs reproducible.trs stdin.trs timestamp.trs 
trailing-nul.trs unpack-invalid.trs unpack-valid.trs upper-suffix.trs 
z-suffix.trs zdiff.trs zgrep-f.trs zgrep-context.trs zgrep-signal.trs znew-k.trs
test -z "test-suite.log" || rm -f test-suite.log
test -z "" || rm -f
test . = "." || test -z "" || rm -f
rm -f Makefile
make[4]: Leaving directory 
'/home/eggert/src/gnu/gzip/tests/torture/gzip/test/gzip-1.9.18-9c2a/tests'
rm -f config.status config.cache config.log configure.lineno config.status.lineno
rm -rf ./.deps
rm -f Makefile
make[3]: Leaving directory 
'/home/eggert/src/gnu/gzip/tests/torture/gzip/test/gzip-1.9.18-9c2a'
(cd /home/eggert/src/gnu/gzip/tests/torture/gzip/test && mv gzip-1.9.18-9c2a 
gzip-1.9.18-9c2a.old	\
   && ${TAR-tar} -Jxf - ) < gzip-1.9.18-9c2a.tar.xz
find /home/eggert/src/gnu/gzip/tests/torture/gzip/test/gzip-1.9.18-9c2a.old 
/home/eggert/src/gnu/gzip/tests/torture/gzip/test/gzip-1.9.18-9c2a -name .deps | 
xargs rmdir
rmdir: missing operand
Try 'rmdir --help' for more information.
dist-check.mk:174: recipe for target 'my-distcheck' failed
make[2]: *** [my-distcheck] Error 123
make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/eggert/src/gnu/gzip'
Makefile:2277: recipe for target 'distcheck-hook' failed
make[1]: *** [distcheck-hook] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/eggert/src/gnu/gzip'
Makefile:1963: recipe for target 'distcheck' failed
make: *** [distcheck] Error 1