I don't think they aim for portability, and give valid reasons why they don't. For instance: http://www.openssh.com/?vm=r http://www.openssh.com/?vm=r """ Ope

I don't think they aim for portability, and give valid reasons why they don't. For instance: http://www.openssh.com/?vm=r http://www.openssh.com/?vm=r """ OpenSSH is developed by two teams. One team does strictly OpenBSD-based development, aiming to produce code that is as clean, simple, and secure as possible. We believe that simplicity without the portability "goop" allows for better code quality control and easier review. The other team then takes the clean version and makes it portable (adding the "goop") to make it run on many operating systems -- the so-called -p releases, ie "OpenSSH 4.0p1". """ Obviously, I'm quoting from OpenSSH's page here, but I believe it's probably the same philosophy on why they're writing code that relies on the security properties of OpenBSD.