3 ms·

That’s like telling me to remove the front door of my house rather than letting me have a key to unlock it.

tempodox 4y ago
True, but giving us a key might jeopardize future revenue streams where we have to pay for the privilege of developing software on Apple platforms. You already get a degraded developer experience for iOS if you don't bribe Apple with a Developer Program subscription.
- rogual 4y ago
  Not just iOS. Notarizing apps for macOS requires payment too.
- scarface74 4y ago
  HN has been predicting a future that you could only install apps through the Mac App Store since it was introduced in 2011. Any day now…
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    We will see alt app stores on the iphone before we see macOS match those predictions.
jabedude 4y ago
What would be a suitable key in your analogy?
- solarkraft 4y ago
  Super-root? But as far as I'm aware the reasoning is that if there's a way to access something from a normal user account (with admin privileges) it can be abused somehow. Maybe a "key" would be the ability to boot/log in to a special mode with SIP enabled. Disabling/enabling it approximates this, but as far as I know an update will generally destroy your changes because Apple will just overwrite everything.
- chongli 4y ago
  The suitable key would be to allow users to grant their own fine-grained entitlements to applications using their own self-signed certificate. The process should be suitably involved and complex enough to scare off regular users who may be attempting to do it under the direction of a third party (who may be trying to trick them) but it should be available to users who know what they’re doing.
  - jabedude 4y ago
    You can do that today on macOS? Build XNU with support for respecting your self-signed cert and then boot it
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    Those resources are still owned by the root user so regular apps can't change them. Turning off SIP gives you something more like a regular linux system. The problem was when a normal user is prompted to type their password by an application, they simply do it granting the program root access so Apple decided regular users shouldn't be able to accidentally do this. If you need that access, you have to reboot in recovery mode to turn off the safety rails.

True, but giving us a key might jeopardize future revenue streams where we have to pay for the privilege of developing software on Apple platforms. You already get a degraded developer experience for iOS if you don't bribe Apple with a Developer Program subscription.

rogual 4y ago
Not just iOS. Notarizing apps for macOS requires payment too.
scarface74 4y ago
HN has been predicting a future that you could only install apps through the Mac App Store since it was introduced in 2011. Any day now…
- Gigachad 4y ago
  We will see alt app stores on the iphone before we see macOS match those predictions.

jabedude 4y ago

What would be a suitable key in your analogy?

solarkraft 4y ago
Super-root? But as far as I'm aware the reasoning is that if there's a way to access something from a normal user account (with admin privileges) it can be abused somehow. Maybe a "key" would be the ability to boot/log in to a special mode with SIP enabled. Disabling/enabling it approximates this, but as far as I know an update will generally destroy your changes because Apple will just overwrite everything.
chongli 4y ago
The suitable key would be to allow users to grant their own fine-grained entitlements to applications using their own self-signed certificate. The process should be suitably involved and complex enough to scare off regular users who may be attempting to do it under the direction of a third party (who may be trying to trick them) but it should be available to users who know what they’re doing.
- jabedude 4y ago
  You can do that today on macOS? Build XNU with support for respecting your self-signed cert and then boot it
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Those resources are still owned by the root user so regular apps can't change them. Turning off SIP gives you something more like a regular linux system. The problem was when a normal user is prompted to type their password by an application, they simply do it granting the program root access so Apple decided regular users shouldn't be able to accidentally do this. If you need that access, you have to reboot in recovery mode to turn off the safety rails.