7 ms·

No, it's really not. Could you explain why you think that?

JohnTHaller 13y ago
See Gatekeeper: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5290 http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5290 Used to be you could install any app you wanted. Now, Gatekeeper is set to deny apps from publishers that haven't paid the yearly Apple tax (aka 'registered' developers which costs $99 a year). Note that Gatekeeper has one additional setting which is app store only. Expect this to be the default in another year or two. Yes, you can adjust this setting yourself, but most users won't change it. This will kill off most hobbyist development on the Mac and a large percentage of open source apps (GPL apps, the most popular open source license, aren't permitted in the App Store).
- rmrfrmrf 13y ago
  Any Mac user who uses "hobby" apps knows how to edit their System Preferences. For people like my parents, who never use any third-party apps and routinely move the entire Safari app to their desktop (I think they think it's a shortcut or something lol), Gatekeeper is useful. I'm just glad they're off PCs now; the number of tech-support calls I get from them has dropped dramatically.
  - JohnTHaller 13y ago
    I wonder what will happen to apps like Firefox when Apple switches Mac OS to App Store only by default and implement some of the restrictions in iOS in the Mac app store. Restrictions like no Javascript allowed. Sure, apps like Chrome can go the same route as they do on iOS and build a custom Chrome skin atop the slower Mobile Safari engine available to 3rd party apps and always be a slower 2nd place browser. But Firefox? If it's just another slower webkit skin, it's not Firefox. Which is why there's no Firefox on iOS.
    - rplacd 13y ago
      Assuming none of the rest of the infrastructure'll change - I'd consider working with possibilities as future "when"s impractical enough; a user'll go download Firefox, the standard Gatekeeper denial message'll pop up: "Firefox" can't be opened because it was not downloaded from the Mac App Store. Your security preferences allow installation of only apps from the Mac App Store. Safari downloaded this file today at... And the user'll either trip over the message and give up in frustration - there will be a class of user who'll visually pattern-match, rather than engage with a meaningful back-and-forth with their computer - or pop into the System Preferences, find Security waiting for them, and off they go. Fairly banal, but by far and large that's because the assumption that switching the default to the MAS-only option would be a novel attempt at total exclusion shouldn't be true, give or take the major assumption outlined above: not so when the current default's in fact "Mac App Store and identified developers" - narrowing the locus of trusted sources, then, is a change that should happen independently of how easy it'll be to get an unsigned app running.
      - JohnTHaller 13y ago
        The default used to be the bottom option which allows all apps. Then Apple switched it to App Store and Publishers that paid Apple $99 with the introduction of Gatekeeper. They'll switch it to App Store only by default soon enough. I'd wager that when Apple switches it to Mac App Store only by default, lots of open source developers will simply give up on Macs. I was planning on developing for Mac myself. Even bought a second hand Macbook to fire things up. But the way Apple works, I just don't trust that it'll be viable in a couple years. Given Apple's arbitrary application of rules in the iOS ecosystem, I have a dim view of the Mac's future in terms of openness. I decided instead to continue to focus on Windows and expand into *nix and Android.
        rplacd 13y ago
        I doubt open-source developers were paying to have their executables codesigned in the first place - I'd assumed in the argument above, at the very least, that the Gatekeeper denial isn't the silent suppression the iOS kernel uses; and on that basis little may as well change for them. Projecting that Apple'll change both the default position of a radio button and their marginalia and messaging around Gatekeeper is different (as a somewhat more substantial change) from your premise, though.
  - grey-area 13y ago
    IMO it's clearly apples intention to move to a controlled App Store model on OS x as quickly as possible. Editing system prefs is just a stopgap to prevent complaints, and at some point they will remove the option.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- Philadelphia 13y ago
  Gatekeeper only applies to applications that were downloaded to an HFS volume by an application that sets the quarantine bit. It doesn't apply to applications installed by other means. It's bypassed by simply choosing "Open" from the context menu instead of double clicking. It's entirely a security feature.
  - JohnTHaller 13y ago
    So, Gatekeeper applies to basically any piece of software that a user would obtain, since the internet is really the way people get software these days (as evidenced by Apple eliminating optical drives from Macbooks). Sure, it's security. So is Apple's restriction on not allowing 3rd party browsers on iOS. At least according to Apple. - unless they use the hobbled Mobile Safari engine without JIT.

See Gatekeeper: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5290 http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5290 Used to be you could install any app you wanted. Now, Gatekeeper is set to deny apps from publishers that haven't paid the yearly Apple tax (aka 'registered' developers which costs $99 a year). Note that Gatekeeper has one additional setting which is app store only. Expect this to be the default in another year or two. Yes, you can adjust this setting yourself, but most users won't change it. This will kill off most hobbyist development on the Mac and a large percentage of open source apps (GPL apps, the most popular open source license, aren't permitted in the App Store).

rmrfrmrf 13y ago
Any Mac user who uses "hobby" apps knows how to edit their System Preferences. For people like my parents, who never use any third-party apps and routinely move the entire Safari app to their desktop (I think they think it's a shortcut or something lol), Gatekeeper is useful. I'm just glad they're off PCs now; the number of tech-support calls I get from them has dropped dramatically.
- JohnTHaller 13y ago
  I wonder what will happen to apps like Firefox when Apple switches Mac OS to App Store only by default and implement some of the restrictions in iOS in the Mac app store. Restrictions like no Javascript allowed. Sure, apps like Chrome can go the same route as they do on iOS and build a custom Chrome skin atop the slower Mobile Safari engine available to 3rd party apps and always be a slower 2nd place browser. But Firefox? If it's just another slower webkit skin, it's not Firefox. Which is why there's no Firefox on iOS.
  - rplacd 13y ago
    Assuming none of the rest of the infrastructure'll change - I'd consider working with possibilities as future "when"s impractical enough; a user'll go download Firefox, the standard Gatekeeper denial message'll pop up: "Firefox" can't be opened because it was not downloaded from the Mac App Store. Your security preferences allow installation of only apps from the Mac App Store. Safari downloaded this file today at... And the user'll either trip over the message and give up in frustration - there will be a class of user who'll visually pattern-match, rather than engage with a meaningful back-and-forth with their computer - or pop into the System Preferences, find Security waiting for them, and off they go. Fairly banal, but by far and large that's because the assumption that switching the default to the MAS-only option would be a novel attempt at total exclusion shouldn't be true, give or take the major assumption outlined above: not so when the current default's in fact "Mac App Store and identified developers" - narrowing the locus of trusted sources, then, is a change that should happen independently of how easy it'll be to get an unsigned app running.
    - JohnTHaller 13y ago
      The default used to be the bottom option which allows all apps. Then Apple switched it to App Store and Publishers that paid Apple $99 with the introduction of Gatekeeper. They'll switch it to App Store only by default soon enough. I'd wager that when Apple switches it to Mac App Store only by default, lots of open source developers will simply give up on Macs. I was planning on developing for Mac myself. Even bought a second hand Macbook to fire things up. But the way Apple works, I just don't trust that it'll be viable in a couple years. Given Apple's arbitrary application of rules in the iOS ecosystem, I have a dim view of the Mac's future in terms of openness. I decided instead to continue to focus on Windows and expand into *nix and Android.
      - rplacd 13y ago
        I doubt open-source developers were paying to have their executables codesigned in the first place - I'd assumed in the argument above, at the very least, that the Gatekeeper denial isn't the silent suppression the iOS kernel uses; and on that basis little may as well change for them. Projecting that Apple'll change both the default position of a radio button and their marginalia and messaging around Gatekeeper is different (as a somewhat more substantial change) from your premise, though.
- grey-area 13y ago
  IMO it's clearly apples intention to move to a controlled App Store model on OS x as quickly as possible. Editing system prefs is just a stopgap to prevent complaints, and at some point they will remove the option.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Philadelphia 13y ago
Gatekeeper only applies to applications that were downloaded to an HFS volume by an application that sets the quarantine bit. It doesn't apply to applications installed by other means. It's bypassed by simply choosing "Open" from the context menu instead of double clicking. It's entirely a security feature.
- JohnTHaller 13y ago
  So, Gatekeeper applies to basically any piece of software that a user would obtain, since the internet is really the way people get software these days (as evidenced by Apple eliminating optical drives from Macbooks). Sure, it's security. So is Apple's restriction on not allowing 3rd party browsers on iOS. At least according to Apple. - unless they use the hobbled Mobile Safari engine without JIT.