To install watchman on Fedora 26, these are all the hoops I had to jump through.

install-watchman.bash

# The following packages are needed during `make`
#  - openssl-devel so you don't get:
#      ContentHash.cpp:13:10: fatal error: openssl/sha.h: No such file or directory
#  - redhat-rpm-config so you don't get:
#      gcc: error: /usr/lib/rpm/redhat/redhat-hardened-cc1: No such file or directory
#  - python-devel so you don't get:
#      pywatchman/bser.c:31:10: fatal error: Python.h: No such file or directory
sudo dnf install openssl-devel redhat-rpm-config python-devel

# The rest is just instructions from
# https://codeyarns.com/2015/02/10/how-to-install-and-use-watchman/
git clone https://github.com/facebook/watchman.git
cd watchman
./autogen.sh
./configure
make
sudo make install

FYI, the above steps do not work for Fedora 27
I do not have a solution for this, unfortunately.

./configure
checking build system type... x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
checking host system type... x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
checking target system type... x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /usr/bin/mkdir -p
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking whether make supports nested variables... yes
checking whether make supports nested variables... (cached) yes
checking for gcc... gcc
checking whether the C compiler works... no
configure: error: in /home/v/devel/other/watchman': configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables See config.log' for more details

Problem seems to be in how a compiler is being detected.

gcc (GCC) 7.3.1 20180303 (Red Hat 7.3.1-5)
Copyright (C) 2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

configure:3616: $? = 0
configure:3605: gcc -v >&5
Using built-in specs.
COLLECT_GCC=gcc
COLLECT_LTO_WRAPPER=/usr/libexec/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/7/lto-wrapper
OFFLOAD_TARGET_NAMES=nvptx-none
OFFLOAD_TARGET_DEFAULT=1
Target: x86_64-redhat-linux
Configured with: ../configure --enable-bootstrap --enable-languages=c,c++,objc,obj-c++,fortran,ada,go,lto --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info --with-bugurl=http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla --enable-shared --enable-threads=posix --enable-checking=release --enable-multilib --with-system-zlib --enable-__cxa_atexit --disable-libunwind-exceptions --enable-gnu-unique-object --enable-linker-build-id --with-gcc-major-version-only --with-linker-hash-style=gnu --enable-plugin --enable-initfini-array --with-isl --enable-libmpx --enable-offload-targets=nvptx-none --without-cuda-driver --enable-gnu-indirect-function --with-tune=generic --with-arch_32=i686 --build=x86_64-redhat-linux
Thread model: posix
gcc version 7.3.1 20180303 (Red Hat 7.3.1-5) (GCC)
configure:3616: $? = 0
configure:3605: gcc -V >&5
gcc: error: unrecognized command line option '-V'
gcc: fatal error: no input files
compilation terminated.
configure:3616: $? = 1
configure:3605: gcc -qversion >&5
> gcc: error: unrecognized command line option '-qversion'; did you mean '--version'?
gcc: fatal error: no input files
compilation terminated.
configure:3616: $? = 1
configure:3636: checking whether the C compiler works
configure:3658: gcc -D_REENTRANT -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE conftest.c >&5
/usr/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/7/../../../libc.so when searching for -lc
/usr/bin/ld: skipping incompatible //lib/libc.so when searching for -lc
/usr/bin/ld: skipping incompatible //usr/lib/libc.so when searching for -lc
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lc
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
configure:3662: $? = 1
configure:3700: result: no
configure: failed program was:
| /* confdefs.h /
| #define PACKAGE_NAME "watchman"
| #define PACKAGE_TARNAME "watchman"
| #define PACKAGE_VERSION "4.9.1"
| #define PACKAGE_STRING "watchman 4.9.1"
| #define PACKAGE_BUGREPORT ""
| #define PACKAGE_URL ""
| #define PACKAGE "watchman"
| #define VERSION "4.9.1"
| / end confdefs.h. */
|
| int
| main ()
| {
|
| ;
| return 0;
| }
configure:3705: error: in /home/v/devel/other/watchman': configure:3707: error: C compiler cannot create executables See config.log' for more details

My initial assessment of -qversion GCC version incomatibility was wrong.
It seems like there are bunch of other libraries (especially, see the last 3 entries) that were missing from Fedora 27

dnf groupinstall "Development Tools" "Development Libraries"
dnf install libtool
dnf install openssl-devel redhat-rpm-config python-devel
dnf install glibc-static
dnf install glibc-headers
dnf install glibc-devel.x86_64

and then do

raise inotify limit

echo 999999 | sudo tee -a /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches
echo 999999 | sudo tee -a /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_queued_events
echo 999999 | sudo tee -a /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_instances

watchman shutdown-server

otherwise, if you use say ReactNative,
the npm start
will hang without an explanation

I'm having trouble on Fedora 28

dnf groupinstall "Development Tools" "Development Libraries"

that will install hundreds of packages. Does anyone know more specifically which ones are required? it would be nice to not install everything in those groups.

well I installed those two groups and I'm still getting the same error.

I'm taking my issue here: facebook/watchman#607

libssl-dev solution working and i also installed libcrypto++-dev package.After that, i did ./autogen.sh , ./configure and make again.

For apt (Ubuntu, Debian…):

sudo apt-get install python-dev   # for python2.x installs
sudo apt-get install python3-dev  # for python3.x installs

For yum (CentOS, RHEL…):

sudo yum install python-devel   # for python2.x installs
sudo yum install python34-devel   # for python3.4 installs

For dnf (Fedora…):

sudo dnf install python2-devel  # for python2.x installs
sudo dnf install python3-devel  # for python3.x installs

For zypper (openSUSE…):

sudo zypper in python-devel   # for python2.x installs
sudo zypper in python3-devel  # for python3.x installs

Repeat this following action
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install

Source

for centos:
yum groupinstall "Development Tools"
yum install libtool
yum install openssl-devel redhat-rpm-config python-devel