Removing --foreign

Now that I have the bulk of the project in place, I want it to adhere to the GNU standard layout. By removing the --foreign option from the call to automake in the bootstrap file, automake is able to warn me about missing, or in some cases [1] , malformed files, as follows:
     $ ./bootstrap
     + aclocal -I config
     + libtoolize --force --copy
     Putting files in AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR, config.
     + autoheader
     + automake --add-missing --copy
     automake: Makefile.am: required file ./NEWS not found
     automake: Makefile.am: required file ./README not found
     automake: Makefile.am: required file ./AUTHORS not found
     automake: Makefile.am: required file ./THANKS not found
     + autoconf
      

The GNU standards book [2] describes the contents of these files in more detail. Alternatively, take a look at a few other GNU packages from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu.

Notes

[1]

For example, when I come to using the @samp{make dist} rule.

[2]

The @sc{gnu} standard is distributed from @uref{http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards.html}.