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LibreOffice latest to fall victim to the curse of Catalina
- api 7y agoSo everyone complains about cruft and ugliness and the fact that OSes accumulate legacy crap without bound, but then everyone freaks out when an OS vendor purges some legacy crap and it breaks some things.
- trymas 7y agoIMHO, it is similar with security. Everyone wants better security, but everyone freaks out if their workflows change or some extra input steps are required for more sensitive actions.
- blfr 7y agoBecause many people implementing security measures sincerely believe that more hassle is better. They have a moral view of security: the more you're willing to put up with, the more secure you are. This is, of course, not true. Password managers are both convenient and improve security. U2F beats virtually every other second factor and YubiKeys are also more convenient than copying codes from texts. If you're changing the workflow anyway, make it both more secure, and more convenient. Sure, it's not always possible. But it very often is.
- rolltiide 7y agoCurse of Catalina I like this book title already
- pwinnski 7y agoThe Register is amusing, but this is hardly noteworthy. If, as LibreOffice suggests, this is some sort of bug or mistake, it will be resolved soon enough. The Register seems to be protesting the entire notarization requirement out of one side of its mouth, while claiming to support increased security out of the other. Catalina apps should be notarized, which LibreOffice is committed to doing. The Register hopes for more controversy.
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- vunie 7y agoNotarization only positions Apple to have control in the future. Allowing Apple to be the sole arbiter of what a user is allowed to run on his machine is a disaster for his rights. Just see iOS and Hong Kong. Apps should be signed. App notarization should never be a requirement.
- jeroenhd 7y agoBuggy system implementations, unfinished API flows, apps constantly needing to ask for permission, a big break in compatibility and little to no time to properly test before the official release: it took some time, but Apple has finally reached their Vista point. Not that this is necessarily bad (although the bugs are super annoying). Vista had to happen, and I can see why many casual users in the Apple ecosystem would prefer a simple, sandbox system for their operating system. Time will tell if this is indeed a step ahead or a problem that will be made undone in the future. It just sucks that Apple customers are dealing with their own Vista now though.
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y agoI'm a “power user” and I think sandboxing is a good thing. I often run code written by others that I haven't read. I would like it if it does not have the ability to erase all my files.
- stefan_ 7y agoThe problem is that sandboxing has been consistently proven to impede legitimate use cases, but not so much the illegitimate.
- blub 7y agoSandboxing on iOS and Android is working great to prevent the spyware developers from achieving their goals. And now macOS is adding more of the same protections...
- jschwartzi 7y agoNo, it just means you need to create a social network to install spyware.
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- BeetleB 7y ago
- aazaa 7y agoFor a long time unsigned apps have refused to launch on macOS. The workaround is to right-click on it then choose "Open". Does this no longer work on Catalina?
- guessmyname 7y agoThese “security” alerts are so stupid! Why do I need to give an app a explicit permission to access common folders in my home directory? I already gave the app permission to do that when I asked the operating system to open it. This annoys me so much! You know why? Because I have a firewall installed (LittleSnitch.app) which shows alerts a few times during the day about network connections from apps that are currently running in the system. I like these alerts, they are informative, they serve a clear purpose. However, the alerts introduced by Apple, they are mostly useless. Why Apple?! Why do you want to waste my time with this useless crap?! The first time I opened Terminal.app after upgrading to macOS Catalina I got several alerts to give permission to the app to access folders that I wanted to “cd” into. The alerts would be useful if they only showed up when something is trying to access core folders, but why do I need a freaking alert when I try to execute “cd ~/Desktop/” or “cd ~/Downloads/” ??? And don’t even try to use the “find” command to search for a file in your user’s library folder, a command like this will trigger dozens of alerts: “find ~/Library/ -name "com.example.app.plist"” These alerts trigger so often and people will start to mindlessly click “Allow”, eventually they will grant system-wide access to malware that should have been prevented by the operating system in a more graceful way. I can see many of my friends and family members who are not tech savvy ignoring these alerts and mindlessly clicking “Allow” every single time.
- gridlockd 7y agoFor the same reason that Ransomware.app shouldn't be allowed to encrypt all your documents, or Spyware.app shouldn't be allowed to upload all your private photos to a marriage scam agency in Slovenia. Yet, this is the default behavior for applications on all Desktop operating systems. Until now. It'll take a while to iron out all the kinks, especially with legacy Apps, but it's the right thing to do.
- guessmyname 7y ago> For the same reason that Ransomware.app shouldn't be allowed to encrypt all your documents, or Spyware.app shouldn't be allowed to upload all your private photos to a marriage scam agency in Slovenia. Yet, this is the default behavior for applications on all Desktop operating systems. Until now. It'll take a while to iron out all the kinks, especially with legacy Apps, but it's the right thing to do. This makes sense only for 3rd-party apps, but I’m talking about apps that have been notarized by Apple themselves. Terminal.app comes pre-installed in every Apple computer, it is developed by software engineers who work for the same company that makes the entire operating system. Why do I need an alert asking for permission to execute this command: “cd ~/Downloads/” ? You could argue that you only need to allow this access once and it will carry on for future interactions, but that is not the point. The point is that Apple is focusing on increasing the security of the system the wrong way, these alerts overwhelm regular users to the point they will mindlessly click “Allow” every time an alert pops up, hackers will take advantage of this and assume users will grant system-wide access to their malicious programs. I was happy with the previous versions of the “Security and Privacy” settings. By default, you could only open apps downloaded from the App Store. However, if you were tech savvy enough you could enable the option to allow apps from 3rd-party identified developers, and if you really wanted to take risks you could enable the option to allow apps from unidentified developers. It was your choice, and the options were “hidden” in the correct place. But today’s operating system is just overly paranoid to the point of becoming an annoyance even for security minded people like me.
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- yitchelle 7y agoIs the notarisation only valid for current and future versions? Hopefully it is retrospective.
- at-fates-hands 7y agoThe GIMP image-editing application also has problems, giving permission errors when trying to access files in locations such as Desktop and Documents I know a LOT of people who will only use Mac laptops and a ton more graphic and web designers who use Macs religiously. I have yet to find someone who uses any Mac products that run Gimp so I find this to be an interesting point.
- joemi 7y agoDo you really think there aren't any people who use a Mac and run GIMP? Why would Mac distributions of it exist if no one used it? I use a Mac and run GIMP. I even bought a recommended app (I think it was Pixelmator?) a few years ago and tried switching to it, but I liked GIMP better so that's what I stuck with.
- tikej 7y agoWell here I am, using GIMP on macbook, although not professionally. I like the os and so on, yet I try to keep my workflow as FOSS as possible. I invest a lot of time in learning and mastering my tools so I believe that using preferably multiplatform and Free software will let me keep my skills and hours I put into learning stuff under my, not some vendor’s control (e.g. if apple keeps going the direction it is going at the moment). This is why I use emacs, inkscape, gdb, gcc etc. on Mac OS
- mhuffman 7y agoI used GIMP just today ... for paid work! ... on a Mac. Granted it isn't a full-fledged replacement for Photoshop, and I do have an Adobe CC subscription, but some things are simply faster and easier (for me) with GIMP.
- jlawer 7y agoEvery developers machine at an web agency I worked for had Gimp Installed and the supplied machines were Macs.... Only designers got the $110+ a seat Creative Cloud Subscriptions.
- Scarbutt 7y agoNever had a good experience with LO in macos(too buggy), I hear that in windows/linux is much better though.
- rwmj 7y agoAny thought I might have that I might give macOS a try are now extinguished. I can't run software unless it has been "notarized" and inspected by Apple? No thanks.
- bableka 7y agojust a pain in the a
- makecheck 7y agoLocking things down in fine-grained ways actually makes it more difficult for developers to figure out all the permission scenarios that users are likely to face. I hope that Apple adds tools to make that easier. For instance, I only have one Mac; once I tell my OS to “allow” my app to do X and Y and Z, how can I change my mind and “disallow” arbitrary things when testing multiple features that all have to work under the same constraints? Ideally, Apple should have a couple of simple switches like “simulate app launch in fresh-install scenario” so that I can pretend my app doesn’t have access anymore and see what happens. Similarly, I should be able to pretend apps aren’t notarized, pretend apps have been disallowed by the user, etc. all without fiddling with different commands and settings or screwing up other permissions I already have set on my machine.
- crooked-v 7y ago> how can I change my mind and “disallow” System Preferences, Security & Privacy -> Privacy.
- extra88 7y agoI haven't seen it in Catalina yet but in Mojave, everything is organized by permission, not by app. If you want to review everything a particular app is allowed to do, you have to look in every permission category. It's not a terrible design but it is inconvenient in that scenario.
- bableka 7y agoCatalina is just pain
- dang 7y agoHi, could you please not post unsubstantive comments to HN? We ban accounts that do that, because we're trying for a bit better quality level on HN than the internet normally defaults to. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow those rules when posting here, we'd be grateful. You might also find these links helpful for getting the spirit of this site: https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html
- marcus_holmes 7y agoI moved from a MacBook to a Linux-only laptop this year. I enjoyed my time with Apple, they used to manufacture the best POSIX-ish laptops around. But I'm glad I left. They're no longer interested in making the best hardware for creatives. Other people are, though.
- tornquist 7y agoDo you mind sharing what you moved to? I’m curious about the hardware you chose and the build quality.
- marcus_holmes 7y agoI went with: https://puri.sm/products/librem-13/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-13/ it looks lovely (pure matte black with no branding gets my vote every time). The OS is a standard Debian derivative, so no surprises there, and I have the option of replacing it if I want to (haven't yet). Build quality hasn't been fantastic to be honest - I had to return the first one because of a faulty monitor connection (but to be fair I had exactly the same problem with my 2015 MacBook too), and the replacement has a problem with its space bar. But the great thing is that I can unscrew the back with a normal screwdriver and have full access to the internals so if I get really bothered by it I can replace/upgrade/fix any of it. Purism support was great, and they encouraged me to take the back off and see if I could spot the problems, which really blew my mind after Apple support. I've been using it for most of a year (writing this on it) and it's been a great experience. The article's view that "I'm no longer reliant on hardware" is true, though I haven't (yet) gone the next step of picking a different window manager and storing the setup for it in a git repo. It's on my to-do list though ;)
- filmgirlcw 7y agoI wish Apple would take the lead in documenting (for the public -- not just in support tickets) how to update your build pipleline to work with notarization. Lots of projects/devs who don't build only for macOS aren't prepared to update their systems and don't always do the testing required to overcome errors in the process. That said, FOSS or not, this is the stuff that should be tested before shipping. It's disconcerting that apparently no one on the LO team has bothered to test an install build on the latest version of macOS (and if you buy a laptop or desktop from Apple today, it likely has Catalina installed).
- saagarjha 7y ago> I wish Apple would take the lead in documenting (for the public -- not just in support tickets) how to update your build pipleline to work with notarization. There's a page for that: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/notarizing_your_app_before_distribution/customizing_the_notarization_workflow https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/notarizing_y...
- campfireveteran 7y agoI continue to enjoy staying on Mojave (10.14.6) and iOS 12.4.1, and won't be buying an MBP or iPhone anytime soon. This is due to Apple's pattern of extracting money from customers through immediately crappy, defective, and less repairable products needing expensive services to operate as they were promised (repair services are now more profitable to Apple than hardware) and releasing buggy, critical feature-eliminating software that has negative value, means I refuse to play along with their unreasonable cult of conspicuous-consumption games lacking meritorious value any longer. Fool me once ... Catalina removes iTunes and 32-bit programs.
- newscracker 7y agoI’m not suggesting that you upgrade to Catalina yet. The removal of support for 32-bit programs was long coming, but I can see how it’s a big deal for some people running legacy software that may never be updated by the developer. You can run the latest (or any recent) version of iTunes on Catalina and use it to manage your iThings and content. There’s a forum post on Macrumors with a nifty AppleScript that will install an older version of iTunes (that you’ve separately downloaded) and make it available for you. It does require disabling SIP temporarily. It doesn’t seem like the determined user is forced to abandon iTunes, as of now.
- kbumsik 7y agoI'm just curious, but why many popular free and open-source softwares are distributed unsigned?
- dottrap 7y agoLibreOffice says they notarized. Does anybody have a clue to what the specific problem is? I'm wondering if it is a bug or edge case that others (such as me) need to worry about for notarizing their distributions.
- gargravarr 7y agoWell now, that's interesting. I include LibreOffice v5 with my standard install of Mojave. I ran a fresh install earlier this week just to test the upgrade, which worked. Only then did I try opening the applications. And LibreOffice v5 opened without a fuss. I read this article and tried downloading v6. Sure enough, I hit this exact issue. That's seriously inconsistent Apple. Thanks for the unnecessary grief.
- tinus_hn 7y agoSurely this cannot be a problem caused by the LibreOffice developers and must be Apples fault. After all, it only happens in one version of the application and not the other!
- skyzyx 7y agoThis is much ado about nothing. The people (and apps) who are impacted are the ones who waited until beyond the last minute to adopt Gatekeeper & Notarization. Apple has been banging this drum for quite a while. Headline is FUD.