hal is using gtk-doc without templates. 
David told me that he needed the following patch to make make distcheck work:

--- a/gtk-doc.make

+++ b/gtk-doc.make

@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ tmpl.stamp: tmpl-build.stamp

 

 #### xml ####

 

-sgml-build.stamp: tmpl.stamp $(CFILE_GLOB) $(srcdir)/tmpl/*.sgml $(expand_content_files)

+sgml-build.stamp: tmpl.stamp $(CFILE_GLOB) $(expand_content_files)

         @echo 'gtk-doc: Building XML'

         @-chmod -R u+w $(srcdir)

         cd $(srcdir) && \

@@ -107,6 +107,7 @@ endif

 clean-local:

         rm -f *~ *.bak

         rm -rf .libs

+        rm -rf tmpl

 

 maintainer-clean-local: clean

         cd $(srcdir) && rm -rf xml html $(DOC_MODULE)-decl-list.txt $(DOC_MODULE)-decl.txt