https://github.com/jcupitt/php-vips-ext/blob/master/config.m4#L7
This is on purpose ?
I have libvips 8.2 ( ubuntu 16.04, and currently can't update to 16.10 which has libvips in 8.3 ).
Changed that const to 8.2, recompiled, and it seems to be working.