Krzesimir Nowak [wrote about his work](http://krnowak.blogspot.com/2011/10/syncevolution-build-system-work.html) on converting SyncEvolution from an autotools project with recursive make to non-recursive make. Definitely worth a read for anyone interested in autotools. The current SyncEvolution master branch (post 1.2) uses that new build system. His conclusion is that the new system is not necessarily easier to understand than the one before (autotools with some preprocessing shell scripts)....
