Between autoconf-2.69 and autoconf-2.71, the test programs that AC_FC_WRAPPERS uses to determine its name-mangling scheme has changed. In 2.69, for example, we have #ifdef __cplusplus extern "C" #endif char foobar_ (); #ifdef FC_DUMMY_MAIN #ifndef FC_DUMMY_MAIN_EQ_F77 # ifdef __cplusplus extern "C" # endif int FC_DUMMY_MAIN() { return 1; } #endif #endif int main () { return foobar_ (); ; return 0; } compared with the following in 2.71: char foobar_ (); #ifdef FC_DUMMY_MAIN #ifndef FC_DUMMY_MAIN_EQ_F77 # ifdef __cplusplus extern "C" # endif int FC_DUMMY_MAIN() { return 1; } #endif #endif int main (void) { return foobar_ (); ; return 0; } The absence of the first #ifdef in 2.71 causes unconditional build failures (false negatives) when, for example, CC=c++. It's definitely a bug in the configure.ac that sets CC=$CXX, too, but I figured I'd report the change nonetheless because I'm not sure what the underlying intention is.