diff --git a/pkgs/development/compilers/abcl/default.nix b/pkgs/development/compilers/abcl/default.nix
index 46b369cce416..94f74e81906e 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/compilers/abcl/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/compilers/abcl/default.nix
@@ -29,9 +29,11 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
     runHook postConfigure
   '';
 
-  buildInputs = [ jre ant jdk jre ];
+  buildInputs = [ jre ];
 
-  nativeBuildInputs = [ makeWrapper ];
+  # note for the future:
+  # if you use makeBinaryWrapper, you will trade bash for glibc, the closure will be slightly larger
+  nativeBuildInputs = [ makeWrapper ant jdk ];
 
   buildPhase = ''
     runHook preBuild
diff --git a/pkgs/development/compilers/abcl/update.sh b/pkgs/development/compilers/abcl/update.sh
index e3f05b8a394b..a8b38e776f25 100755
--- a/pkgs/development/compilers/abcl/update.sh
+++ b/pkgs/development/compilers/abcl/update.sh
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env nix-shell
-#!nix-shell -i bash -p nix-update curl
+#!nix-shell -i bash -p nix-update subversion
 
-new_version=$(curl https://armedbear.common-lisp.dev/ | grep abcl-src | sed 's;[^>]*>abcl-src-\(.*\).tar[^$]*;\1;' | head -n 1)
+new_version=$(svn ls https://abcl.org/svn/tags | tail -1 | tr -d /)
 nix-update abcl --version "$new_version"