On AIX, in order to use the "blibpath" linker flag (runtime library search path), I use the environment variable LDFLAGS like this:

LDFLAGS="-Wl,blibpath:<foo>"

OpenSSL's Configure script interprets the colon character as a list separator (according to $list_separator_re) and eventually converts it to a space, causing the linker to fail ("ld: 0706-015 The -b libpath option needs a parameter.")

The generated Makefile includes a different, "wrong" LDFLAGS:

# cd openssl-1.1.1d
# LDFLAGS="-Wl,blibpath:/usr/lib" ./Configure aix64-gcc
# grep -R blibpath .
./Makefile:LDFLAGS= -Wl,blibpath /usr/lib
./configdata.pm:  LDFLAGS => [ "-Wl,blibpath", "/usr/lib" ],
./configdata.pm:      "LDFLAGS" => "-Wl,blibpath:/usr/lib",

I could not find a way to change the list separator character or "escape" the colon character without editing the code of the configure script.