diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/porters-handbook/book.sgml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/porters-handbook/book.sgml
index b6841c328f..285f45bb2e 100644
--- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/porters-handbook/book.sgml
+++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/porters-handbook/book.sgml
@@ -6645,6 +6645,30 @@ bacula:*:910:910:Bacula Daemon:/var/db/bacula:/sbin/nologin</programlisting>
 	  entirely.</para>
       </sect1>
 
+      <sect1 id="dads-workarounds">
+	<title>Necessary workarounds</title>
+
+	<para>Sometimes it is necessary to work around bugs in
+	  software included with older versions of &os;.</para>
+
+	<itemizedlist>
+	  <listitem>
+	    <para>Some versions of &man.make.1; were broken
+	      on at least 4.8 and 5.0 with respect to handling
+	      comparisons based on <makevar>OSVERSION</makevar>.
+	      This would often lead to failures during
+	      <command>make describe</command> (and thus, the overall
+	      ports <command>make index</command>).  The workaround is
+	      to enclose the conditional comparison in spaces, e.g.:
+	      <programlisting>if ( OSVERSION > 500023 )</programlisting>
+	      Be aware that test-installing a port on 4.9 or 5.2
+	      will <emphasis>not</emphasis> detect this problem.</para>
+	  </listitem>
+
+	</itemizedlist>
+
+      </sect1>
+
       <sect1 id="dads-misc">
 	<title>Miscellanea</title>