I have a project that relies on automatically-built sources, therefore I have created a BUILT_SOURCES variable in my src/Makefile.am file (see GNU Automake ยง 9.4 Built Sources ). Everything works perfectly, however I have noticed that if I launch make install before launching make all the sources are correctly built, but the same does not happen if I launch make install-exec before launching make all. So I have examined the generated src/Makefile, and I have found the reason. Currently src/Makefile.am generates the following code in src/Makefile: install: $(BUILT_SOURCES) $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) install-am install-exec: install-exec-am Evidently install and install-exec are treated differently, and the second one does not build any source. I believe that the correct generated code for src/Makefile should be instead: install: $(BUILT_SOURCES) $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) install-am install-exec: $(BUILT_SOURCES) $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) install-exec-am Cheers and thanks, GNU folks, for your incredible work. --madmurphy