Below would be my suggestion to just have GUILE_FOR_BUILD for specifying the build system guile. In particular note that the gnu standards advise against using --with to specify filenames, it's meant to specify an external package the build should utilize. Hopefully few people will need to override the default GUILE_FOR_BUILD, and those smart enough to know what to do should be happy with an AC_ARG_VAR variable. Some advice could be put in the manual if there might be any remaining doubts. * configure.in (--with-guile-for-build): Remove this option, it's not normal style for --with. (GUILE_FOR_BUILD): Use AC_ARG_VAR.