+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #8686 +++ sed -i is a gnu extension and is not present in OpenBSD's sed. xfdesktop hardcodes its use in src/Makefile.am: src/Makefile.am: && sed -i -e 's/org_xfce_FileManager/xfdesktop_file_manager_proxy/g' \ src/Makefile.am: && sed -i -e 's/org_xfce_Thunar/xfdesktop_thunar_proxy/g' \ src/Makefile.am: && sed -i -e 's/org_xfce_Trash/xfdesktop_trash_proxy/g' \ configure should check for SED program (so that we can override it with SED=/usr/local/bin/gsed on OpenBSD) and use $(SED) in Makefile.am instead. A way to check for it is : dnl AC_PROG_SED is only avaliable in recent autoconf versions. dnl Use AC_CHECK_PROG instead if AC_PROG_SED is not present. ifdef([AC_PROG_SED], [AC_PROG_SED], [AC_CHECK_PROG(SED, sed, sed)]) (taken from http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/apr/apr/trunk/configure.in) AC_PROG_SED macro is available since autoconf 2.62.
(Or configure could check for sed -i, and fallback to gsed :)
Fixed in 7e81439.