-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 is enable in gcc by default on alpine. See the 010_all_default-fortify-source.patch patch in main/gcc. Disabling it here silences a bunch of compiler warnings. diff -upr vis-0.2.orig/configure vis-0.2/configure --- vis-0.2.orig/configure 2016-04-06 23:36:44.232477390 +0200 +++ vis-0.2/configure 2016-04-06 23:36:59.705671155 +0200 @@ -199,7 +199,7 @@ tryflag CFLAGS_TRY -Werror=unused-com tryldflag LDFLAGS_TRY -Werror=unknown-warning-option tryldflag LDFLAGS_TRY -Werror=unused-command-line-argument -CFLAGS_STD="-std=c99 -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=200809L -D_XOPEN_SOURCE=700 -DNDEBUG -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2" +CFLAGS_STD="-std=c99 -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=200809L -D_XOPEN_SOURCE=700 -DNDEBUG" LDFLAGS_STD="-lc" OS=$(uname)