Re: mktexpk: non-POSIX compliant use of "tail"

[Karl Berry]

    I wonder if dropping this kind of compatibility with old UNIX
    systems is done for a good reason.

Don't get me started!  (I have complained about precisely these
backward-incompatibilities in POSIX many times, to zero effect.)

    > mktexpk from tetex 3.0 uses "tail -1", which is not POSIX compliant, and
    > does not work with GNU coreutils 5.3.0.  

In this particular case ...
tail -1 works for me with coreutils 5.3.0.

$ tail -1 /etc/issue

$ tail --version
tail (GNU coreutils) 5.3.0
...