gettext-tiny's msgfmt tries to use "--" as a literal output file (note
that --statistics is ignored)

--- felinks-0.13.5/po/Makefile	2020-08-30 14:31:52.000000000 +0000
+++ felinks-0.13.5/po/Makefile	2020-10-24 21:23:18.736882854 +0000
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ POTFILES_ABS_LIST = potfiles.list
 POTFILES_REL = $(shell find $(top_srcdir)/src/ -name '*.[ch]' -o -name options.inc -o -name 'actions-*.inc' | sort)
 
 quiet_cmd_gmsgfmt = ' [$(PO_COLOR)GMSGFMT$(END_COLOR)]   $(RELPATH)$(@)'
-      cmd_gmsgfmt = rm -f -- "$@" && $(GMSGFMT) --statistics -o "$@" -- "$<"
+      cmd_gmsgfmt = rm -f -- "$@" && $(GMSGFMT) --statistics -o "$@" "$<"
 
 
 # Distributed elinks-*.tar.gz packages include po/*.gmo files, so that