in bsd.autotools.mk essentially makes this a no-op given that all the
old variables set a USE_AUTOTOOLS_COMPAT variable, which is parsed in
exactly the same way as USE_AUTOTOOLS itself.
Moreover, USE_AUTOTOOLS has already been extensively tested by the GNOME
team -- all GNOME 2.12.x ports use it.
Preliminary documentation can be found at:
http://people.FreeBSD.org/~ade/autotools.txt
which is in the process of being SGMLized before introduction into the
Porters Handbook.
Light blue touch-paper. Run.