Flashes of Panic

Four months after upgrading to an Intel Mac, I’m still finding various and sundry applications which I ought to upgrade from PPC to Intel. XDarwin is today’s project, just because I want to be able to compare how a PDF looks in Preview and Acrobat Reader here to what ggv shows me on the Suns. (I’m sure there are other good reasons to do this, but they haven’t fit my workflow yet. Maybe opening xemacs windows locally?)

But you can’t just click a link and download XDarwin. You need to fill in your email address, and they will email instructions to you for download. I think I would only be more shocked if they asked for a postal address and offered to ship me a printed listing of the source code. (Better still, someone could print out the compiled binary in hexadecimal, pages and pages of seamless blocks of unreadable code.)

I haven’t had the email yet, so maybe there’s some esoteric gotta-hold-your-mouth-right steps required for installing XDarwin. This is famously complex software, after all. But at the same time, the people who want and need an X-windows server on their Mac are probably among the most capable software-installers around. Far more likely to my cynical mind is the idea that the XDarwin folks would rather I pay $40 for a CD than do a direct download.

I’m puzzled and annoyed at how much friction is involved in just getting a copy of this piece of software, let alone installing it. On the one hand, this speaks to how little friction normally exists in obtaining and installing software these days. When the X project started, selling CDs was not only a means of funding the project, but the best way to distribute the software. On the other hand, that isn’t true anymore—and for pity’s sake, folks, isn’t the name of the parent project XFree?

Update, 22 April: Eighteen hours later, still no email telling me how to download this software. Something’s broken here.

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