`make dist` from git does not produce working tarball

[zeha]

• Program: dnsdist (but I think Authoritative, Recursor also have this problem)
• Issue type: Bug report

Context: Trying to build distro packages for a PR branch.

Repro steps:

• check out sources from git
• cd pdns/dnsdistdist
• make dist
• copy tarball elsewhere, tar xf ../dnsdist-0.0.26719.0.rgacogneddistincomingnghttp2.gc428e279cc.dirty.tar.bz2
• cd dnsdist*
• autoreconf -vi -> fails

failure:

$ % autoreconf -vi
autoreconf: export WARNINGS=
autoreconf: Entering directory '.'
autoreconf: configure.ac: not using Gettext
autoreconf: running: aclocal -I m4
sh: 1: build-aux/gen-version: not found
configure.ac:4: error: AC_INIT should be called with package and version arguments
/usr/share/aclocal-1.16/init.m4:29: AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE is expanded from...
configure.ac:4: the top level
autom4te: error: /usr/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 1
aclocal: error: /usr/bin/autom4te failed with exit status: 1
autoreconf: error: aclocal failed with exit status: 1