This is a Devuan system, w/ the following installed:
- GNU Autoconf 2.69c
- GNU Make 4.1
- GNU bash, versione 4.4.12(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
- Linux miasma 5.7.0-0.bpo.2-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 5.7.10-1~bpo10+1 (2020-07-30) x86_64 GNU/Linux

I tried to research similar failure reports in both bug-automake
and automake mailing lists, but did not find anything relevant.

Is there anything else i can provide to help diagnose/fix this?

-- 
Thien-Thi Nguyen