> 1) "make" fails if libssl-dev package is not installed. Documentation does not mention SSL library requirements.

I added a note to the documentation, thank you.

> 2) /etc/init.d/elogd: line 10: /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions: No such file or directory (I fixed this by commenting
> out that line).
> 
> 3) Starting elogd: /etc/init.d/elogd: line 34: echo_success: command not found (Fixed by search/replace "echo_"
> to "echo ").

The elogd (or elogd.init in the distribution) is written for RedHat based systems where echo_success gives the 
typical output with a green [OK] at the end of the line. For Debian, there is (was) in principle a Debian package 
which has it's own startup script. Since the package maintainer is not active any more (I guess), the Debian 
updates are heavily old. Once elog gets managed inside Debian again, that should get better again, but until then 
one has to follow 2) and 3) from above. If I would remove it, the Scientific Linux users would complain.