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It's nonsense because it didn't exist before. Imagine you're a long-time user of my software. You upgrade your operating system (because's Apple's marketing tel

It's nonsense because it didn't exist before. Imagine you're a long-time user of my software. You upgrade your operating system (because's Apple's marketing tells you to) and find that my software doesn't work anymore. Who made the change? Apple. Who do customers complain to? Me. Despite any argument, Apple's change has cost me $1000+ of development costs for users to continue using my software. Apple is not my customer, and I don't feel that I owe it a penny. If MacOS didn't exist, it'd only make my life easier. If this change only affected new users, I'd have no complaint.

scarface74 7y ago
So in that case Apple should never introduced tighter security? Well, if you want yo stay in business selling your software, you have to keep it updated. Would you also be upset if you couldn’t still sell 68K software in 2019? You either update your software or people will buy something else. BareBones managed to sell and keep updating BBEdit between Apple transitioning from 68K Macs, PPC Macs, OS X and intel Macs. Did you really think that you would never have to update your software? How long have you been in business?
- vortico 7y ago
  It's always true that software must have a maintenance budget due to changing user markets. My point is that compared to Windows or Linux, Mac is very expensive to maintain software for. If your software has mostly cross-platform code, I would estimate based on my experience that the Mac-specific work is 10x that of the others. Let's just say thank God that `com.apple.security.cs.disable-library-validation` exists, so the 150 plugin developers for VCV Rack don't have to go through the notarization nonsense that I do. That would truly kill the software, or would force users to disable GateKeeper altogether (with `sudo spctl --master-disable`) to use.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    You really think that Microsoft or Adobe spends 10x as much to support the Mac? If the ROI on Macs is so horrible compared to Linux then why wouldn’t Adobe or MS be dropping Mac support and instead support Linux?
    - vortico 7y ago
      Yes, platform-specific expenses are 10x on Mac vs. Linux and Windows. I said nothing about ROI. You're confusing that with platform-specific expenses. ROI of platform = number of platform users * price - "platform-specific expenses" Hopefully you can see why even if "platform-specific expenses" is high, the ROI of the platform can be higher than another platform, because the number of platform users is much higher.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        If it is so much more expensive to support the Mac than Linux, why won’t the major software vendors support Linux? Are you going to drop support for the Mac?
        vortico 7y ago
        Because the "number of platform users" is very low (say 0.2-2% for professional users). I explained that above. >Are you going to drop support for the Mac? Probably not, but I might begin charging 20% more for Mac versions of the software.
gbear605 7y ago
You're not doing work for Apple, you're doing work that helps your existing customers have more secure systems.
- vortico 7y ago
  If my customers wanted this, I would gladly budget for it. But nobody has asked for this, even when I bring it up. The reason (I imagine) is that people use my software in professional/home studios where you typically have a dedicated computer to run the software. People purchase a computer based on the recommended specs of my software, and some don't even bother connecting it to the Internet after getting everything installed. If they do, they don't download random software from the Internet because 2 or 3 packages is all they need. There just aren't really any attack vectors that things like app translocation, notarization, code-signing, runtime entitlements, app stapling, paying $100/yr to be an Apple Developer member, etc would solve.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    You don’t have to pay anything to get your code signed....
    - vortico 7y ago
      "Beginning in macOS 10.15, notarization is required by default for all software." https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizing_your_app_before_distribution https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizin... Notarization requires that the software is signed with a certificate obtained from your $100/yr Apple Developer membership.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        You don’t have to have a paid developer account.
        vortico 7y ago

scarface74 7y ago

So in that case Apple should never introduced tighter security? Well, if you want yo stay in business selling your software, you have to keep it updated. Would you also be upset if you couldn’t still sell 68K software in 2019? You either update your software or people will buy something else. BareBones managed to sell and keep updating BBEdit between Apple transitioning from 68K Macs, PPC Macs, OS X and intel Macs. Did you really think that you would never have to update your software? How long have you been in business?

vortico 7y ago
It's always true that software must have a maintenance budget due to changing user markets. My point is that compared to Windows or Linux, Mac is very expensive to maintain software for. If your software has mostly cross-platform code, I would estimate based on my experience that the Mac-specific work is 10x that of the others. Let's just say thank God that `com.apple.security.cs.disable-library-validation` exists, so the 150 plugin developers for VCV Rack don't have to go through the notarization nonsense that I do. That would truly kill the software, or would force users to disable GateKeeper altogether (with `sudo spctl --master-disable`) to use.
- scarface74 7y ago
  You really think that Microsoft or Adobe spends 10x as much to support the Mac? If the ROI on Macs is so horrible compared to Linux then why wouldn’t Adobe or MS be dropping Mac support and instead support Linux?
  - vortico 7y ago
    Yes, platform-specific expenses are 10x on Mac vs. Linux and Windows. I said nothing about ROI. You're confusing that with platform-specific expenses. ROI of platform = number of platform users * price - "platform-specific expenses" Hopefully you can see why even if "platform-specific expenses" is high, the ROI of the platform can be higher than another platform, because the number of platform users is much higher.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      If it is so much more expensive to support the Mac than Linux, why won’t the major software vendors support Linux? Are you going to drop support for the Mac?
      - vortico 7y ago
        Because the "number of platform users" is very low (say 0.2-2% for professional users). I explained that above. >Are you going to drop support for the Mac? Probably not, but I might begin charging 20% more for Mac versions of the software.

gbear605 7y ago

You're not doing work for Apple, you're doing work that helps your existing customers have more secure systems.

vortico 7y ago
If my customers wanted this, I would gladly budget for it. But nobody has asked for this, even when I bring it up. The reason (I imagine) is that people use my software in professional/home studios where you typically have a dedicated computer to run the software. People purchase a computer based on the recommended specs of my software, and some don't even bother connecting it to the Internet after getting everything installed. If they do, they don't download random software from the Internet because 2 or 3 packages is all they need. There just aren't really any attack vectors that things like app translocation, notarization, code-signing, runtime entitlements, app stapling, paying $100/yr to be an Apple Developer member, etc would solve.
- scarface74 7y ago
  You don’t have to pay anything to get your code signed....
  - vortico 7y ago
    "Beginning in macOS 10.15, notarization is required by default for all software." https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizing_your_app_before_distribution https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizin... Notarization requires that the software is signed with a certificate obtained from your $100/yr Apple Developer membership.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      You don’t have to have a paid developer account.
      - vortico 7y ago