8 ms·
> I have to buy developer accounts The Apple Developer Program is only needed for macOS if you want to do sign your binaries or distribute through the Mac App
by Aaron2222 2y ago
> I have to buy developer accounts
The Apple Developer Program is only needed for macOS if you want to do sign your binaries or distribute through the Mac App Store. And you only have to pay Microsoft if you want to publish to the Microsoft Store (or use Visual Studio if you're a company that has more than 5 Visual Studio users, more than 250 computers, or more than $1 Million USD in annual revenue).
> buy certificates for signing binaries
Fair (though both Windows and macOS will run apps that haven't been signed, with more warnings of course).
> share 30% of my revenue with them for barely any reason
Only if you use their stores (Mac App Store or Microsoft Store), and it looks like the Microsoft Store won't take any cut if you do your own payments and it's not a game.
- fragmede 2y agoIf you don't sign your binaries on macOS, the friction for the user to run your app is prohibitive, outside of developer-focused communities.
- mr_toad 2y agoIt didn’t take my kids long to learn how to run unsigned binaries, and neither of them are developers.
- Pesthuf 2y agoAn actual customer won’t like it when you tell them they have to turn off or bypass a security feature to run your software. Not when other software doesn’t need it.
- jjnoakes 2y agoOnce I get a project to "actual customers" I don't mind paying and signing my binaries.
- samplatt 2y agoThis is something that definitely chafes. Even in a large-company enterprise environment, so many worthy & legitimate projects never end up shipping due to financial or office-politics reasons. Putting up paywalls between devs and their work that they to spend both time and money on is bloody stupid.
- ryandrake 2y agoHow about "actual users" rather than "actual customers?" We should not normalize this because it eats away at free software. It is totally unreasonable to have to pay the operating system's manufacturer in order for person A to simply distribute software to person B, outside of manufacturer's infrastructure. The manufacturer has nothing to do with that distribution, and has no business "warning" the user about this software.
- rblatz 2y agoYou don’t have to pay to do that on MacOS, they can bypass the warning saying it’s unsigned and that the developer can’t be positively identified.
- Aaron2222 2y agoApple should really provide free codesigning for free/open source software.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- almostnormal 2y ago(almost) everyone has an SSL certificate for the web. An OS could check if software is signed with one. And maybe display a warning for only domain validation.
- stavros 2y agoWhat does software being signed signify? Does it mean it's vetted? Can a malware author pay the $X and have their malware signed?
- fragmede 2y agoyet. everyone knows kids are good with getting around restrictions on computers, whether put there by their parents or otherwise.
- palijer 2y agoI've walked a couple hundred customers (American small business owners) through installing an unsigned MacOS application.There was plenty of friction for enough of them to cause us onboarding problems and for us to invest in doing it the Apple way. A lot of it introduced from 2017 onwards and I think now it says something akin to "this application will hack your computer and is a virus" and you need to click the smaller hidden "ignore"s a few times to do what you want.
- sydbarrett74 2y agoYes, but your kids have a technical parent, so chances are they both have significantly above-average intelligence.
- otteromkram 2y agoI technically have two parents. How far up the smarts pole am I?
- sydbarrett74 2y agoI should've said 'techie' parent. I assume most people knew what I meant.
- cultofmetatron 2y agokids will learn just about anything with the right motivation. adults who you are trying to get to pay you to use your software on the other hand... well as someone who runs a few unsigned binaries myself. Its not hard if you know what to do but apple makes a big deal about how its "unsafe" and this freaks non tech people out.
- bitwize 2y agoAnd if you don't sign your binaries on Windows, Windows Defender will assume they're malware and silently delete them.
- AnonymousPlanet 2y agoThat statement is just not true. We don't sign our software and we never had that happen with any customer. It neither happened to any unsigned software on any of my own machines, in spite of running Defender on them.
- thombat 2y agoNope. Or at least, never happened to me. This comment section is starting to read like a "Bad Times" virus warning https://web.archive.org/web/20060925013545/http://www.makingpages.org/pagemaker/humor/badtimes.html https://web.archive.org/web/20060925013545/http://www.making...
- thombat 2y agoAnd having re-read "Bad Times" for the first time in years, the "screw-up your VHS tracking" is a testament to its age.
- bitwize 2y ago"...translate your documents into Swahili, make your TV record Gigli, neuter your pets and give your laundry static cling." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvfD5rnkTws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvfD5rnkTws Seriously, though, I've had the Windows Defender thing happen to freshly compiled binaries I made. The only way to prevent it from happening is to sign your binaries, or submit them individually to Microsoft using your Microsoft account for malware analysis. It flagged the binary as being some sort of trojan (which name I looked up and found that it was a Windows Defender designation for "I don't know the provenance of this binary so I'm going to assume it's bad") and quarantined it.
- Repulsion9513 2y agoNah, much more common that "SmartScreen" will assume they're malware and throw up a big warning prompt (which the user will say "can't be bypassed" because they didn't click "More info").
- Aaron2222 2y agoYes, it definitely adds quite a bit of friction. Though my other points about not needing to pay for the Apple Developer Program unless you want to codesign (at a much lower price than what you pay for a codesigning certificate suitable for signing Windows programs) and not having to pay Apple 30% (or 15%, or anything) on macOS still stand.
- stale2002 2y agoYour point doesn't really stand, no. Your solution solves a made up problem that nobody cares about, and doesn't solve the one that actually matters, which is to successfully make and distribute good software to users. Someone shouldn't have to add the the fine print line "Assume I am talking about things that matter, instead of things that don't" to every statement or opinion that they have.
- wredue 2y agoI’m not sure what is “prohibitive” about pressing literally one button.
- fragmede 2y agoThere are a bunch of words around the button. If you read them, they make you not want to press the button.
- alpaca128 2y agoIt's often not just one button. It's a button, then opening the settings, manually navigating to the right section, clicking Open Anyway and then entering your password.
- dimask 2y agoIf it is a company laptop, it can be impossible (unless you sort of hack it to circumvent the security settings they put).
- n8henrie 2y agoOn macOS? One button?
- currency 2y agoI answer a support line for users at my institution installing an unsigned application and almost every MacOS support call is because the unsigned app option is only shown in a normally hidden system setting.