Hmm, this code (checking the xotcl version) is unmodified since a long time (16 months) and is part the stable version in the oacs-5-3 branch. This variable is set by xotcl by versions since 2001.
I have the suspicion that you have multiple versions of xotcl installed on your system, or that your xotcl installation is broken. What do you see if you "fgrep XOTcl .../log/error.log"? Did you make an "make install-aol"?
Btw, the head version requires XOTcl 1.5.* or newer (1.5.6 recommended). The code in the serializer tests for backward compatibility for versions before 1.4, and can be mostly dropped (which i will do now).
