diff --git a/eclass/autotools.eclass b/eclass/autotools.eclass
index 2710bf827b..76a5c2eade 100644
--- a/eclass/autotools.eclass
+++ b/eclass/autotools.eclass
@@ -341,10 +341,11 @@ eautoconf() {
 		echo
 		die "No configure.{ac,in} present!"
 	fi
-	if [[ ${WANT_AUTOCONF} != "2.1" && -e configure.in ]] ; then
-		eqawarn "This package has a configure.in file which has long been deprecated.  Please"
-		eqawarn "update it to use configure.ac instead as newer versions of autotools will die"
-		eqawarn "when it finds this file.  See https://bugs.gentoo.org/426262 for details."
+	if [[ ${WANT_AUTOCONF} != "2.1" && -e configure.in && ! -e configure.ac ]] ; then
+		eqawarn "This package has a configure.in file which has long been deprecated. Since no"
+		eqawarn "configure.ac is present either, we rename configure.in to configure.ac. If"
+		eqawarn "this causes problems, please file a bug report and make it block bug #426262."
+		mv configure.{in,ac} || die
 	fi
 
 	autotools_run_tool --at-m4flags autoconf "$@"