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The Gates to Hell: Apple’s Notarizing

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Re: The Gates to Hell: Apple’s Notarizing

#31

Post by keeganj »

Anyone think that users will eventually become desensitized to the "malicious software" popup? If the process is this complex and buggy I imagine a lot of developers simply won't bother with notarization. Eventually if enough legitimate apps don't bother the popup will become common, and users may be annoyed more by Apple than any particular app. Like how the "run as admin" prompt just became an extra automatic click to many users in Windows.

It's not like the big development shops that do take the time to get the notarization process working get a special green checkmark by their app. After the app has been launched the first time, it's back to an even playing field with the apps that didn't notarize.

Re: The Gates to Hell: Apple’s Notarizing

#32

Post by anentropic »

And, not mentioned in the article... you have to have an Apple Developer ID which costs £79/year ($99). Presumably if your subscription lapses any previously released software will stop working?

That is the part I find most offensive, if it was just difficult and buggy I would suck it up and work around it. But having to pay for the privilege is too painful, particularly if you're offering free software.

For my case (non GUI app) I can at least distribute via Homebrew and have the user build from source in a more or less automated way.

Another notarization helper tool is here https://github.com/mitchellh/gon

Re: The Gates to Hell: Apple’s Notarizing

#33

Post by jhatemyjob »

maxwell wrote: post #25
threeseed wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment could have been written a decade ago and it was as laughable back then as it is today. Developers do not dictate the success of a platform. Users do. And they don’t want Linux on the desktop.

Why do users choose a platform? Apps. Who makes the apps? Developers embraced Windows over Mac, users followed. (Until iOS development made Mac's the default dev machine.) Developers embraced iOS and Android over Symbian and webOS. Windows and Mac were great development platforms ten years ago, and iOS and Android were way better than the now-dead competition.

LOL you know who coined the term "app" right?

Re: The Gates to Hell: Apple’s Notarizing

#34

Post by r00fus »

maxwell wrote: post #25
threeseed wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment could have been written a decade ago and it was as laughable back then as it is today. Developers do not dictate the success of a platform. Users do. And they don’t want Linux on the desktop.

Why do users choose a platform? Apps. Who makes the apps? Developers embraced Windows over Mac, users followed. (Until iOS development made Mac's the default dev machine.) Developers embraced iOS and Android over Symbian and webOS. Windows and Mac were great development platforms ten years ago, and iOS and Android were way better than the now-dead competition.

> Why do users choose a platform? Apps.

They also choose brands. Apple has one of the biggest ones, and the fact that people bought MacBooks during the butterfly keyboard years should tell you just how powerful that brand is.

Re: The Gates to Hell: Apple’s Notarizing

#37

Post by sitharus »

anentropic wrote: post #32

And, not mentioned in the article... you have to have an Apple Developer ID which costs £79/year ($99). Presumably if your subscription lapses any previously released software will stop working? That is the part I find most offensive, if it was just difficult and buggy I would suck it up and work around it. But having to pay for the privilege is too painful, particularly if you're offering free software. For my case…

Code signing isn’t linked to an active developer subscription, if it lapses all existing signatures are still valid - you just can’t sign more.

Re: The Gates to Hell: Apple’s Notarizing

#38

Post by galad87 »

anentropic wrote: post #32

And, not mentioned in the article... you have to have an Apple Developer ID which costs £79/year ($99). Presumably if your subscription lapses any previously released software will stop working? That is the part I find most offensive, if it was just difficult and buggy I would suck it up and work around it. But having to pay for the privilege is too painful, particularly if you're offering free software. For my case…

No, if your subscription lapses previously released software won't stop working. If you are offering free software you can sign with an ad-hoc certificate, and instruct the user on how to bypass gatekeeper, which isn't great at all but it doesn't cost any $$.

Re: The Gates to Hell: Apple’s Notarizing

#39

Post by ece »

mmastrac wrote: post #7

Notarization has been a nightmare of a solution to a problem that isn't effective. You can get practically as much security by pushing malware signatures to the client without the massive privacy overreach of having Apple archive each and every bit of code that you generate for distribution. This is just Apple's overreach extended to the desktop. Excessive control that makes developer's lives hell while adding barely…

Maybe independent notaries are what you're after if privacy is the problem? The web seems to do fine with independent cert providers.

Re: The Gates to Hell: Apple’s Notarizing

#40

Post by thysultan »

maxwell wrote: post #2

Apple devices are becoming increasingly unusable for developers. Fantastic opportunity for Linux apps to gain more dev resources, as anyone with a bit of foresight sees little future in macOS, iOS, Windows, or Android as development platforms.

Not Linux, maybe a new OS. All the current OS's have settled into their consolidate the empires status, so we're just waiting for the barbarians at the gates to free us from their inevitable tyranny.
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