I try to specify an alternate OBJCOPY to the new build to work around the Solaris 5.11 gobjcopy bug, and new build configure works, but then the hotspot build does not pick up this definition and defaults to the wrong one.

(1) specify alternate gobjcopy to configure, works:
AS=/usr/ccs/bin/as bash configure --with-cups=/java/devtools/share/cups --with-freetype=/java/devtools/sparc/freetype-sparcv9 --with-tools-dir=/export/drchase/newbuild/bin
...

checking for gobjcopy... gobjcopy
configure: Rewriting OBJCOPY to "/export/drchase/newbuild/bin/gobjcopy"


(2) invoke make, see it choose wrong objcopy.

gmake CONF=solaris-sparcv9-normal-server-fastdebug
Building 'solaris-sparcv9-normal-server-fastdebug' (matching CONF=solaris-sparcv9-normal-server-fastdebug)
Building Java(TM) for target 'default' in configuration 'solaris-sparcv9-normal-server-fastdebug'

## Starting langtools
## Finished langtools (build time 00:00:00)

## Starting hotspot
make381[2]: warning: -jN forced in submake: disabling jobserver mode.
INFO: ENABLE_FULL_DEBUG_SYMBOLS=1
INFO: ALT_OBJCOPY=/usr/ccs/bin/gobjcopy
INFO: /usr/ccs/bin/gobjcopy cmd found so will create .debuginfo files.
...


Obvious workaround of setting ALT_OBJCOPY is undone by new build working hard to protect me from myself (as it should). This may be more general than just Solaris.