Comment 3 for bug 832137

Maarten,
Yes. You're right. The two files are generated by running configure script from templates which you mentioned.

This week I review the patch and find the bug. It's in distinguish_kernel_makefile_and_source_dirs.patch in line 45 to 55.

+echo "\$(warning KBUILD_SRC=\$(KBUILD_SRC))" > "$dir"/Makefile
+kernelsrc=$(make -C "$CONFIG_SND_KERNELDIR" M="$dir" 2>&1 >/dev/null | \
+ sed -n "s#^$dir/Makefile:.*: KBUILD_SRC=\(.*\)\$#\1#; T; p; q")
+rm -rf "$dir"
+if test -z "$kernelsrc"; then
+ AC_MSG_RESULT(failed)
+ exit 1
+else
+ CONFIG_SND_KERNELSRC="$kernelsrc"
+ AC_MSG_RESULT($kernelsrc)
+fi

With configure script generated by autoconf, we fail to set $CONFIG_SND_KERNELSRC into $kernelsrc in Ubuntu environment.
I cannot generate fix patch with my poor skills... I hope this may help you.