This used to be the case before commit 30de2cb603cd.
Signed-off-by: Martin Kletzander <mkletzan(a)redhat.com>
---
 README     | 1 -
 autogen.sh | 5 +++++
 2 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/README b/README
index 679bf7010bbe..e5187a65ed47 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -107,7 +107,6 @@ Building and installing
 
 If you're cloning this from git the first time, do:
 
-  ./bootstrap
   ./autogen.sh
 
 For normal builds, and building from the tarball:
diff --git a/autogen.sh b/autogen.sh
index 3a913e03a401..064df589d004 100755
--- a/autogen.sh
+++ b/autogen.sh
@@ -2,6 +2,11 @@
 
 set -e
 
+# If the submodule is not initialized run bootstrap
+if git submodule status .gnulib | grep -q '^-'; then
+    ./bootstrap
+fi
+
 # If no arguments were specified and configure has run before, use the previous
 # arguments
 if test $# -eq 0 && test -x ./config.status; then
-- 
2.19.1