My version of automake seems to require that these if and endif statements appear at the beginning of the line. If not I get the following error at compile time: make[5]: Entering directory `/home/dude/code-pidgin-trunk/libpurple/protocols/bonjour' Makefile:1019: *** missing separator. Stop. make[5]: Leaving directory `/home/dude/code-pidgin-trunk/libpurple/protocols/bonjour' And the if and endif lines appear in Makefile, which they should not.