I pushed my patch to master as c5881ff1f3ea321401b0f040c4e795bcd452ef5d, so tentatively closing this bug. Note that, if you encountered the issue, this patch is not enough: you already have .texi files that contain lots of "??". You'll need to start from a clean checkout, or at least clean the texi files with something like: git pull # to get the patch rm doc/*.texi # remove texi files git checkout doc # reinstate those that are commited ./bootstrap # recreate dummy files for the Makefile to be happy make # should now be working Sorry for the inconvenience!