This PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT is brought to you by the I JUST WASTED AN HOUR ON THAT Foundation:

Do you suffer from mysteriously hanging autotools processes? Or perhaps other mysteriously hanging processes? If so, you may have a problem with your file locking, and the IJWAHOT Foundation recommends you compile and run this program on the computer with the problem, preferably under strace or equivalent. If it, too, hangs, then you do indeed have a problem with your file locking. The Foundation does not presently know the cause of this problem, but we suspect that it is NFS’s fault somehow. If you do know the cause of this problem, we would love to hear about it in the comments.