821fbe3a seems to have broken compilation on Solaris:

sh: syntax error at line 1: `(' unexpected *** Error code 2 The following command caused the error: MAKE="`if [ "xmake" = "x" ]; then echo "${MAKE-make}"; else echo "make"; fi`" export MAKE && "${MAKE}" `$MAKE force --no-print-directory >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo --no-print-directory || :` "MAKE=${MAKE}" "CONFIGUREARGS=" "BUILDDIR=build/${PIKE_BUILD_OS:-`uname -s -r -m|sed "s/ /-/g"|tr "[A-Z]" "[a-z]"|tr "/()" "___"`}" METATARGET= _make_in_builddir

Frankly I don't understand the change; the double quotes inside the backquotes need to be escaped, otherwise they end the double-quoted string which starts with "BUILDDIR=... Different quotes do not nest in sh, when a startquote is found the matching end quote is looked for using only the rules which applies to the start quote. So to have "s inside a double-quoted string (which also happens to contain a couple of backquotes), they need to be escaped.