To build a core version of dvda-author-, use the autotools with following command line: 

./configure --enable-core-build 

or add the following symbolic constants either to CPPFLAGS (using -DWITHOUT_...) or to hard code in commonvars.h:
WITHOUT_FLAC
WITHOUT_libogg
WITHOUT_libfixwav
WITHOUT_sox
WITHOUT_dvdauthor
HAVE_core_BUILD

