In the frontend Makefiles that pull in libpgfeutils, we'd generally
done it like this:

LDFLAGS += -L$(top_builddir)/src/fe_utils -lpgfeutils $(libpq_pgport)

That method is badly broken, as seen in bug #14742 from Chris Ruprecht.
The -L flag for src/fe_utils ends up being placed after whatever random
-L flags are in LDFLAGS already.  That puts us at risk of pulling in
libpgfeutils.a from some previous installation rather than the freshly
built one in src/fe_utils.  Also, the lack of an "override" is hazardous
if someone tries to specify some LDFLAGS on the make command line.

The correct way to do it is like this:

override LDFLAGS := -L$(top_builddir)/src/fe_utils -lpgfeutils $(libpq_pgport) $(LDFLAGS)

so that libpgfeutils, along with libpq, libpgport, and libpgcommon, are
guaranteed to be pulled in from the build tree and not from any referenced
system directory, because their -L flags will appear first.

In some places we'd been even lazier and done it like this:

LDFLAGS += -L$(top_builddir)/src/fe_utils -lpgfeutils -lpq

which is subtly wrong in an additional way: on platforms where we can't
restrict the symbols exported by libpq.so, it allows libpgfeutils to
latch onto libpgport and libpgcommon symbols from libpq.so, rather than
directly from those static libraries as intended.  This carries hazards
like those explained in the comments for the libpq_pgport macro.

In addition to fixing the broken libpgfeutils usages, I tried to
standardize on using $(libpq_pgport) like so:

override LDFLAGS := $(libpq_pgport) $(LDFLAGS)

even where libpgfeutils is not in the picture.  This makes no difference
right now but will hopefully discourage future mistakes of the same ilk.
And it's more like the way we handle CPPFLAGS in libpq-using Makefiles.

In passing, just for consistency, make pgbench include PTHREAD_LIBS the
same way everyplace else does, ie just after LIBS rather than in some
random place in the command line.  This might have practical effect if
there are -L switches in that macro on some platform.

It looks to me like the MSVC build scripts are not affected by this
error, but someone more familiar with them than I might want to double
check.

Back-patch to 9.6 where libpgfeutils was introduced.  In 9.6, the hazard
this error creates is that a reinstallation might link to the prior
installation's copy of libpgfeutils.a and thereby fail to absorb a
minor-version bug fix.

Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/20170714125106.9231.13772@wrigleys.postgresql.org