This package installs an up-to-date version of config.guess and config.sub, used by the automake and libtool packages. it provides the canonical copy of those files for other packages as well.

it also documents in /usr/share/doc/autotools-dev/readme.debian.gz best practices and guidelines for using autoconf, automake and friends on debian packages. this is a must-read for any developers packaging software that uses the gnu autotools, or gnu gettext.

additionally this package provides seamless integration into debhelper or cdbs, allowing maintainers to easily update config.{guess,sub} files in their packages.