HP-UX apparently has no other function than getpass(), and it silently truncates after 8 characters. There are Apache httpd and Subversion users grappling with this limit. (It caused a some puzzlement for me with cvs too, but APR won't help that ;) )
The hint from Joe is to set ac_cv_func_getpass=no before running configure. A nicer way would be to add a configure option such as --enable-apr-getpass. But why not avoid the system getpass() by default? Is maintaining compatibility with limitations of other applications on the same system preferable to breaking compatibility with the same application used on different systems with different native capabilities?
