I've been unwilling to create the authkeys file if it does not already
exist, because it represents a significant change in accessibility for
that account.
However, in the "distro package" scenario, one wants to make it as easy
as possible for the end-user (who is actually an admin for the gitolite
being hosted on his account, let's not forget) to use.
And it seems that in some cases that might mean he does not (yet) have a
~/.ssh even...
The old install method will now use conf/VERSION instead of src/VERSION everywhere.
The new one, if you use the builtin make file to "make branch.tar" will also create just such a file
