distcheck: cannot create directory `.am21666': Permission denied (was: creating a report that displays what has been installed)

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Bruce,

* Bruce Korb wrote on Thu, Feb 03, 2011 at 09:48:25PM CET:
> P.S. in researching this, I found in my own logs a bunch of these:
> >     rm -rf $backupdir; exit $rc
> > mkdir: cannot create directory `.am21666': Permission denied
> > make[3]: Leaving directory 
> > `/old-home/bkorb/ag/ag/autogen-5.11.6pre21/_build/doc'
> 
> It all has to do with backup directories for texi stuff.
> Only happens in "make distcheck".  Seems to be innocuous,
> but it is disconcerting.

On what system, which Automake version was used (look at the first line
of a Makefile.in).

Thanks,
Ralf