If util/reconf is run with Autoconf 2.59e (using the snapshot version
shipped with Debian at the time of this report), the build then fails. 
One obvious problem is that some Autoconf variables are now relative to
datarootdir and therefore datarootdir has to be set in Makefiles (mandir
in particular is subject to this) or installation locations are wrong. 
However, there is some other more subtle problem that causes this failure:

+ cmp -s osconf.new osconf.h
+ rm -f osconf.h
+ cp osconf.new osconf.h
rm -f osconf.new
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/eagle/dvl/krb5/src/include'
making all in util...
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/eagle/dvl/krb5/src/util'
making all in util/support...
make[2]: Entering directory `/home/eagle/dvl/krb5/src/util/support'
make[2]: *** No rule to make target `all-liblinks', needed by
`all-unix'.  Stop.
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/eagle/dvl/krb5/src/util/support'
make[1]: *** [all-recurse] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/eagle/dvl/krb5/src/util'
make: *** [all-recurse] Error 1

I haven't investigated this in any more detail.  Using the released
Autoconf 2.59 works fine.