http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2533
------- Additional Comments From bugzilla@mdaniel.scdi.com 2006-07-02 13:55 ------- Which is ironic, given that is exactly how an automake based system (from whence this "standard" originated) does it.
I have first-hand knowledge that prefixing the autotools make variables (bindir, libdir, etc) with $(DESTDIR) works great.
The follow-up is to just ensure that DESTDIR is only set during the "install" target, otherwise it does funny things to the binaries during the "all" target. Maybe that is the "inserting paths into files" to which you refer.
It's fine if you guys don't want to accept the patch.