couchdb does not use pkg-config to get js build flags. It causes that the js lib is built with JS_THREADSAFE but couchdb is missing this flag. see: $ pkg-config --cflags libjs -DXP_UNIX=1 -DJS_THREADSAFE=1 -I/usr/include/nspr4 It may cause crashes in js garbage collector.
This bug appears to have been reported against 'rawhide' during the Fedora 19 development cycle. Changing version to '19'. (As we did not run this process for some time, it could affect also pre-Fedora 19 development cycle bugs. We are very sorry. It will help us with cleanup during Fedora 19 End Of Life. Thank you.) More information and reason for this action is here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping/Fedora19
Actually couchjs is built against mozjs185 and it does uses pkg-config. Btw I'm surprised to see two different *.pc files in js-devel-1.8.5 package. I've no idea which one is better than other. Anyway, CouchDB does uses pkg-config as per version 1.6.1 so I believe it's safe to close this ticket.