diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 82b8856c..2dcbd6e0 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -101,6 +101,7 @@ Other changes:
 * minor bug 761: When reading bookmarks from an XBEL file, distinguish
   attribute names from attribute values.
 * enhancement: Updated ISO 8859-7, ISO 8859-16, KOI8-R, and MacRoman.
+* lzma disabled by default. It's rarely used and doesn't build with new xz.
 
 Bugs that should be removed from NEWS before the 0.12.0 release:
 
diff --git a/configure.in b/configure.in
index 5aab22e8..9425eb04 100644
--- a/configure.in
+++ b/configure.in
@@ -465,8 +465,12 @@ if test "x{with_gc}" != xno; then
 		[  --with-gc               enable Boehm's garbage collector])
 fi
 
-EL_CONFIG_OPTIONAL_LIBRARY(CONFIG_LZMA, lzma, lzma.h, lzma, lzma_code,
-	[  --without-lzma          disable lzma encoding support])
+# LZMA disabled by default, because of little usability and compilation problems
+# with new xz
+AC_ARG_WITH(lzma, [  --with-lzma           enable lzma encoding support],
+            [ if test "x$withval" != xno; then
+            EL_CONFIG_OPTIONAL_LIBRARY(CONFIG_LZMA, lzma, lzma.h, lzma, lzma_code, [])
+            fi ])
 
 # ===================================================================
 # Check for GSSAPI, optional even if installed.