I tried the new snapshot, but got
[qss:octave-3.5.92] ./autogen.sh
generating source lists for liboctave/Makefile...
../liboctave/vx-op-inc.mk is unchanged
../liboctave/vx-op-src.mk is unchanged
../liboctave/mx-op-inc.mk is unchanged
../liboctave/mx-op-src.mk is unchanged
../liboctave/smx-op-inc.mk is unchanged
../liboctave/smx-op-src.mk is unchanged
generating doc/interpreter/images.mk...
../../doc/interpreter/images.mk is unchanged
generating src/DLD-FUNCTIONS/module.mk...
../../src/DLD-FUNCTIONS/module.mk is unchanged
bootstrapping...
build-aux/bootstrap: Error: --no-git requires --gnulib-srcdir
=============================
Fedora 14 system. Builds from hg just fine. git is installed.