>Anybody else seen this?

No, but that doesn't mean much ;-)

>make: Unclosed variable specification for CC
>[1]   Segmentation fault      make "_THISDIR_=...
>*** Error code 139

stack trace will be very handy...

>Aug  1 00:00:33 eros /netbsd: pid 2439 (make), uid 1000: exited on signal 11
>(core not dumped, err = 13)

permission denied... you are doing unpriv build I assume?
Can you try as root - or fix the perms on the dir where make died?

Thanks
--sjg