V8 sendmail prints an error if an illegal switch is specified (whereas other versions of sendmail silently ignore them). The mailx program that is supplied with OSF/1 and AIX issues an illegal -x switch. To keep sendmail from uselessly complaining under OSF/1 and AIX, that switch is specifically ignored. To get the same behavior with AIX under V8.1 sendmail, look for _osf_ in main.c and uncomment the code necessary to ignore that switch.