So this avoids failing the build, but the script does not work completely correctly?

In D25989#577032, @emaste wrote:

So this avoids failing the build, but the script does not work completely correctly?

Yeah this is not the same. However, I believe lorder is no longer required with recent (> 1990) linkers+ar/ranlib that generates an index, so lorder not producing the correct order probably doesn't matter in practice (https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/tsort-background.html)
Also: The lorder command is essentially obsolete. Use the following command in its place: % ar -ts file.a (https://www.unix.com/man-page/osf1/1/lorder/)

I also wonder if we could skip the separate ranlib step and simply use ar to simplify building of static libraries and avoid lots of forked child processes for each .a file.

lib${LIB_PRIVATE}${LIB}.a: ${OBJS} ${STATICOBJS}
	@${ECHO} building static ${LIB} library
	@rm -f ${.TARGET}
	${AR} ${ARFLAGS} ${.TARGET} `NM='${NM}' NMFLAGS='${NMFLAGS}' \
	    ${LORDER} ${OBJS} ${STATICOBJS} | ${TSORT} ${TSORTFLAGS}` ${ARADD}
	${RANLIB} ${RANLIBFLAGS} ${.TARGET}

->

lib${LIB_PRIVATE}${LIB}.a: ${OBJS} ${STATICOBJS}
	@${ECHO} building static ${LIB} library
	@rm -f ${.TARGET}
	${AR} ${ARFLAGS} ${.TARGET} ${OBJS} ${STATICOBJS} ${ARADD}

If we add s to ARFLAGS.

I'm fine with this with a comment above the || echo 0 bit (i.e., a short version of what you wrote in your last Phab comment). @imp has been doing lots of Unix archaeology and might have a comment.