Thank you for your patch.

It looks good, but there is one mistake - when writing automake*1.[7-9].* | automake*1.1[0-6].* (with the ending dot) major versions of automake will be reported as unsupported - for example 1.15, while 1.15.1 will be accepted.

On the other hand, the current way without a ending dot adds support for versions that do not yet exist - for example 1.70. And this is probably not an intention.

The question, then, is whether to ignore this second effect and use simple way without a ending dot:

automake*1.6.[1-9] | automake*1.[7-9]* | automake*1.1[0-6]* )

Or whether to be accurate and use:

automake*1.6.[1-9] | automake*1.[7-9] | automake*1.[7-9].* | automake*1.1[0-6] | automake*1.1[0-6].* )

What is your opinion?

That was sloppy of me.
I just assumed major version releases would be x.x.0.
automake*1.6.[1-9] isn't necessary.

The existing test therefore looks good so my vote is for:

automake*1.6.* | automake*1.[7-9]* | automake*1.1[0-6]* )

Option 1)
Why not simply add 
| automake*1.16*
as per original code? Doesn't look particularly nice, but should provide the required functionality.

Option 2)
As Ray suggested, use
automake*1.6.* | automake*1.[7-9]* | automake*1.1[0-6]*
The problem with non existing versions of automake (like 1.70) is not really a problem. The original code would already match that (automake*1.7*)

Option 3)
automake*1.6.* | automake*1.[7-9]* | automake*1.1[0-9]*
Keep up happy until automake 1.19 and does not require updating the admin modules multiple times only for that. I think there is no much added risk here.

My preference is 3 - 2 - 1.

Pushed to GIT in hash 065b9015 (master), a1cd2ba6 (r14.0.x) and 968b99af (v3.5.13-sru).
Thank you for your original patch and good idea.