diff --git a/runautoconf b/runautoconf
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+#!/bin/sh
+
+# This is a simple script which is meant to help developers
+# better deal with the GNU autotools, specifically:
+#
+#   aclocal
+#   autoheader
+#   autoconf
+#   autromake
+#
+# The whole thing is quite complex...
+#
+# The idea is to run this collection of tools on a single platform,
+# typically the main development platform, running a recent version of
+# autoconf. In theory, if we had these tools on each platform where we
+# ever expected to port the software, we would never need to checkin
+# more than a few autotools configuration files. However, the whole
+# idea is to generate a configure script and associated files in a way
+# that is portable across platforms, so we *have* to check in a whole
+# bunch of files generated by all these tools.
+
+# The real source files are:
+#
+# acinclude.m4 (used by aclocal)
+# configure.ac (main autoconf file)
+# Makefile.am, */Makefile.am (automake config files)
+#
+# All the rest is auto-generated.
+
+
+# --- Step 1: Generate aclocal.m4 from:
+#             . acinclude.m4 
+#             . config/*.m4 (these files are referenced in acinclude.m4)
+
+echo "Running aclocal"
+aclocal
+
+# --- Step 2: Generate config.h.in from:
+#             . configure.ac (look for AM_CONFIG_HEADER tag or AC_CONFIG_HEADER tag)
+
+echo "Running autoheader"
+autoheader
+
+# --- Step 3: Generate configure and include/miaconfig.h from:
+#             . configure.ac
+#
+
+echo "Running autoconf"
+autoconf
+
+# --- Step 4: Generate Makefile.in, src/Makefile.in, and a whole bunch of
+#             files in config (config.guess, config.sub, depcomp,
+#             install-sh, missing, mkinstalldirs) plus COPYING and
+#             INSTALL from:
+#             . Makefile.am
+#             . src/Makefile.am
+#
+# Using --add-missing --copy makes sure that, if these files are missing,
+# they are copied from the system so they can be used in a distribution.
+
+echo "Running automake --add-missing --copy"
+automake --add-missing --copy
+
+echo "All done."
+echo "To build the software now, do something like:"
+echo ""
+echo "% mkdir build-directory"
+echo "% cd build-directory"
+echo "% ../configure [--with-debug] [...other options]"
+echo ""