Why ar doesn't call ranlib on Mac?

[Alexy Khrabrov]

And in the semi-final analysis, it turns out it's the terminal
program, iTerm, which set COMMAND_MODE=legacy.  As opposed to the
regular Terminal which sets it to unix2003.  Now the only question is
to read Japanese to understand the explanations at

http://d.hatena.ne.jp/moriyoshi/20090208/1234108045

Anyone?  Does it have to do with compiling for Leopard?
BTW the iterm port is still at 0.8.2, seemingly abandoned.  I guess if
it were compiled by MacPorts it's set COMMAND_MODE to "unix2003" by
default, not "legacy"...
Cheers,
Alexy