gnome-common was just bumped to 2.4.0 in portage (see #30314) this was a RDEPEND in 1.0.2 but was ripped from the 1.1.97 ebuild (surely because of version number, which make people think it is a gnome1 only junk) gnome-common is used in anjuta to build projects (using gnome-autoconf.sh) it is also in use for people compiling gnome from CVS
anjuta 1.1 comes with these macros in it's tree, please check your facts before you file bugs. Those should do just fine in most cases.