If I try to build libssp in a combined tree with newlib and binutils, for an embedded target, configure keeps barfing because libssp's configury is trying (in lots of places) to build executables and/or run them, neither of which works in for crosses in a combined tree.
And GCC_NO_EXECUTABLES just makes it more obvious where the problems are, but doesn't actually fix anything. I had "fixed" m32c to work around this, but I'm beginning to think that libssp is Just Plain Wrong here, because I'm tripping over it with sh-elf now too.