On master a few days ago I noticed new test failures on a
Fedora 16 system, due to the unprotected use of compress.

In tests/dist-formats.tap, I read this:

    # Assume gzip(1) and compress(1) are available on every reasonable
    # portability target.

Of course, I could install it with a simple "yum install ncompress",
but the point is that compress is not installed by default.
That tool is becoming anachronistic.

    $ grep '^FAIL:' tests/test-suite.log
    FAIL: depmod
    FAIL: depmod.tap 50 - tru64 [long VPATH] make & remake
    FAIL: depmod.tap 84 - tru64 [absolute VPATH] make & remake
    FAIL: dist-formats
    FAIL: dist-formats.tap 9 - 'make dist-tarZ' work by default
    FAIL: dist-formats.tap 13 - 'make dist-xz' work by default
    FAIL: dist-formats.tap 15 - 'make dist-bzip2' work by default
    FAIL: dist-formats.tap 17 - 'make dist-zip' work by default
    FAIL: dist-formats.tap 19 - 'make dist-shar' work by default
    FAIL: dist-formats.tap 49 - ac=dist-tarZ,no-dist-gzip [distcheck]
    FAIL: dist-formats.tap 60 - gzip+bzip2+tarZ [make -j4 dist-all]
    FAIL: dist-formats.tap 63 - gzip+bzip2+tarZ [check .tar.Z tarball]
    FAIL: vala-mix
    FAIL: tap-bad-prog-w
    FAIL: tap-bad-prog-w.tap 2 - non-existent test is reported
    FAIL: tap-bad-prog-w.tap 3 - non-executable test is reported
    FAIL: tap-bad-prog-w.tap 4 - non-readable test is reported

Here's the complete test-suite.log file: