bug#27618: Possible bug when compiled with ssl

[Paul Eggert]

Jean Louis wrote:
> Configure cannot run without "sort", and if "sort" is compiled with
> ssl, then ./configure is not working, regardless.

Sure, but that's not really a bug in the coreutils build procedure, which 
assumes a POSIX-like environment containing the C compiler and a few standard 
utilities. If these utilities don't work coreutils won't build, just as most 
other packages won't build.

It sounds like your problem is that your distro builds coreutils with the 
--with-openssl option, but does not list the OpenSSL libraries as prerequsites 
for coreutils. If so, that's a bug in your distro's packaging rules and should 
be reported to your distro; it's not something coreutils itself can fix.