In fact, when I tried to build 1.13.25 a couple of weeks ago, I kept 
hitting a build error:

gmake[2]: Entering directory `/src/gnu/tar-1.13.25/lib'
source='xstrtoimax.c' object='xstrtoimax.o' libtool=no \
depfile='.deps/xstrtoimax.Po' tmpdepfile='.deps/xstrtoimax.TPo' \
depmode=gcc /bin/sh ../depcomp \
gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I.. -I../intl  -I/opt/gnu/include  -O2 -c 
`test -f
xstrtoimax.c || echo './'`xstrtoimax.c
In file included from xstrtoimax.c:31:
xstrtol.c:90: macro `strtoimax' used without args
gmake[2]: *** [xstrtoimax.o] Error 1
gmake[2]: Leaving directory `/src/gnu/tar-1.13.25/lib'
gmake[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
gmake[1]: Leaving directory `/src/gnu/tar-1.13.25'
gmake: *** [all] Error 2

I already feels like a long time ago, but IIRC, I started to come to the 
conclusion that this was due to some kind of a known, HP-related problem 
with the 'configure' script.  Never got any further with it, though...  
I s'pose this could be one explanation for the weird behavior of that 
DLE I described in my earlier note.

-- Mark