For me personally I have to ask the question why a developer would choose NOT to be registered and their product notarized? Are they doing something against Apple terms? Are they installing iffy kernel extensions or using non approved APIs to get their software to work? Why do so many developers choose to play by the rules except for those loose canons who think they know better. Almost all of the developers whose products I find interesting are registered and signed. Finally, even with iOS’s walled garden we are always hearing about apps that try to get around the rules to do questionable things. I think we the users should be putting pressure on the rogue developers to get with the program. If their software is so great then they should get it signed/notarized. Oh, and you’ll notice that this kind of software almost always breaks when a new macOS update is released because it is not kosher to begin with.
The amount of malicious code development is constantly low and has been since the inception of the Macintosh. But of course, Compaq Timmy, never snapped out of his virus infested roots, did he?
What on earth are you talking about? Only a daft newbie who doesn’t understand corporations would believe the Apple CEO is setting software security practices for the platform.
Also, using the name “Timmy” as a pejorative is childish and small.
How much of an issue will this be for open source or apps developed by non-organisational developers?
The willingness in the open source community to pay for an Apple-ID is mostly very low, yet you are going to be hard presses to find apps that don't use open source code one way or the other. So the impact will definitely be there.
Telltale is the list of open source that went into macOS, and while some of it is Apple's own open sourced portions of macOS, a very significant portion are from developers who may not necessarily have an Apple-ID. https://opensource.apple.com/release/macos-10141.html
Developers who use open source software in their apps, sign everything themselves, they don't expect the OSS devs to deliver signed packages to them. No impact will be there whatsoever. OSS devs can always develop and build code that runs on their computers without a paid Apple Developer account - they can even distribute it, unsigned though.
Gatekeeper has never really stopped someone who really wanted to run anything on their Macs, either signed or unsigned. It's there for the non-techie users.
Notarization adds an extra step for developers and provides better security for the all users. Xcode may make this easy, but there are a dozen other ways to build Mac apps that don't directly involve Xcode, and now require manual steps to notarize. Notarization fails when devs use undocumented APIs or libraries/frameworks/modules that were built/developed using older SDK's. Such use cases do not prevent signing apps that work even on the latest macOS today. So, in the near future this might be an issue for some devs still using old code (you can't notarize an app that bundles an old version of JRE for example). It might also be an issue for specialized apps or certain developer tools, open source or not.
My understanding is that for the time being everything will continue to work as usual, except that the warning dialog on opening new apps that are not notarized will be less attractive.
For me personally I have to ask the question why a developer would choose NOT to be registered and their product notarized? Are they doing something against Apple terms? Are they installing iffy kernel extensions or using non approved APIs to get their software to work? Why do so many developers choose to play by the rules except for those loose canons who think they know better. Almost all of the developers whose products I find interesting are registered and signed. Finally, even with iOS’s walled garden we are always hearing about apps that try to get around the rules to do questionable things. I think we the users should be putting pressure on the rogue developers to get with the program. If their software is so great then they should get it signed/notarized. Oh, and you’ll notice that this kind of software almost always breaks when a new macOS update is released because it is not kosher to begin with.
Older software and hardware tends to be killed off by things like this when developers refuse to update what they consider “legacy” products for Mac OS changes. Look at all the drivers for the M-Audio FireWire audio interfaces when Avid sold M-Audio to InMusic...
The amount of malicious code development is constantly low and has been since the inception of the Macintosh. But of course, Compaq Timmy, never snapped out of his virus infested roots, did he?
What on earth are you talking about? Only a daft newbie who doesn’t understand corporations would believe the Apple CEO is setting software security practices for the platform.
Also, using the name “Timmy” as a pejorative is childish and small.
A timmy is that one kid to break something at a party. So I think it is pretty fitting for a CEO under which leadership the party has been broken for a good section of existing (and future) Mac users.
How much of an issue will this be for open source or apps developed by non-organisational developers?
The willingness in the open source community to pay for an Apple-ID is mostly very low, yet you are going to be hard presses to find apps that don't use open source code one way or the other. So the impact will definitely be there.
Telltale is the list of open source that went into macOS, and while some of it is Apple's own open sourced portions of macOS, a very significant portion are from developers who may not necessarily have an Apple-ID. https://opensource.apple.com/release/macos-10141.html
Developers who use open source software in their apps, sign everything themselves, they don't expect the OSS devs to deliver signed packages to them. No impact will be there whatsoever. OSS devs can always develop and build code that runs on their computers without a paid Apple Developer account - they can even distribute it, unsigned though.
Gatekeeper has never really stopped someone who really wanted to run anything on their Macs, either signed or unsigned. It's there for the non-techie users.
Notarization adds an extra step for developers and provides better security for the all users. Xcode may make this easy, but there are a dozen other ways to build Mac apps that don't directly involve Xcode, and now require manual steps to notarize. Notarization fails when devs use undocumented APIs or libraries/frameworks/modules that were built/developed using older SDK's. Such use cases do not prevent signing apps that work even on the latest macOS today. So, in the near future this might be an issue for some devs still using old code (you can't notarize an app that bundles an old version of JRE for example). It might also be an issue for specialized apps or certain developer tools, open source or not.
My understanding is that for the time being everything will continue to work as usual, except that the warning dialog on opening new apps that are not notarized will be less attractive.
Let me give you an example of an open source developer who don't sign their application for the Mac (probably for "ideological" reasons): The Mercurial Source Management System that is widely used by developers and businesses both standalone and in connection with Bitbucket. Does Apple really want to put itself in a situation where we have to compile the SCM each on our own with an Apple Developer ID to be able to use it on macOS?
I know this is for the security of the platform, and that it's more or less transparent to the end user. But, it feels like something else is dying in the process. I can't quite put my finger on it.
Nothing is dying in the process. It will always be possible to install non-notarized apps on macOS, I don't see that ever going away. There's nothing wrong with motivating developers to notarize and making installation of potentially malicious apps a bit more difficult. Adds up to better security for every user.
And I'm going to have to go through this process to just share an app with a friend, or even with a class I'm teaching? Don't worry, says Apple, notarizing an uploaded app "should take less than an hour"! The walls are closing in.
And I'm going to have to go through this process to just share an app with a friend, or even with a class I'm teaching? Don't worry, says Apple, notarizing an uploaded app "should take less than an hour"! The walls are closing in.
Reading is fundamental:
”While it will still be possible to install apps in macOS that have not gone through the notarization process,”
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Also, using the name “Timmy” as a pejorative is childish and small.
Gatekeeper has never really stopped someone who really wanted to run anything on their Macs, either signed or unsigned. It's there for the non-techie users.
Notarization adds an extra step for developers and provides better security for the all users. Xcode may make this easy, but there are a dozen other ways to build Mac apps that don't directly involve Xcode, and now require manual steps to notarize.
Notarization fails when devs use undocumented APIs or libraries/frameworks/modules that were built/developed using older SDK's. Such use cases do not prevent signing apps that work even on the latest macOS today. So, in the near future this might be an issue for some devs still using old code (you can't notarize an app that bundles an old version of JRE for example). It might also be an issue for specialized apps or certain developer tools, open source or not.
My understanding is that for the time being everything will continue to work as usual, except that the warning dialog on opening new apps that are not notarized will be less attractive.
Nothing is dying in the process. It will always be possible to install non-notarized apps on macOS, I don't see that ever going away. There's nothing wrong with motivating developers to notarize and making installation of potentially malicious apps a bit more difficult. Adds up to better security for every user.
”While it will still be possible to install apps in macOS that have not gone through the notarization process,”