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Comment by dessant | Hacker News Reader

This was heartbreaking to read. I don't understand how anyone can defend not being able to run software on their own devices, unless it was approved by Apple.

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It's the kind of thing I definitely want for every non-technical person in my life. Which is most of them.

We're not that far removed from a time when every non-nerd's personal computer was a cess-pit of viruses and "addon search bars". It was very, very bad. It'd be much worse now given how much more sophisticated the malware scene is, and how much more connected devices are (always-on Internet wasn't even the norm in the early days of the every-computer-has-some-trojans-and-bonzai-buddy era)

If I couldn't have written code on my first computer, would I have been the programmer I am today? Would I even have been a programmer?

I don't know. And that part scares me.

Learning programming's easier even on an iPad than it was on, say, mid-90s desktops, overall. Granted earlier systems that booted straight to a programming environment forced you to grapple with code to do much with them, but they were a hell of a lot less accessible to the average person than a Raspberry Pi, say, price-wise. Even the crappy ones were a lot more expensive than that, especially inflation-adjusted.

The future is probably 10,000x as many total computing devices, most of which will be fairly locked down and not as hobbyist-programmer friendly as we've been used to but much better & safer for most folks—but also 100x as many tinkering-friendly computers, and much cheaper than they were "back in the day", and 1,000x the encouragement and free or cheap resources to learn to program as we had. My concern level that current trends will make programming anything other than more accessible, generally, to kids than it was back in the good ol' days, approaches zero. Even if the percentage of computing devices that are tinkering-friendly drops.

I have not had the unidentified application issue that the author posted but a full two thirds of my games in my Steam Library are flagged as not compatible with Catalina and most likely never will be.

Apple really needed a comparability method similar to how windows allowed you to simulate old environments. not always successfully but at least it was a chance

That notarization fee / process, I have not read beyond this story, does look to be a burden beyond what should be reasonable.

Most of games in my steam library are flagged incorrectly, e.g they still have a 64 bit binary and still run.

I think individual users can still disable the checks (how else can you develop software if you can't execute what you compile?)

The complete loss of control over your own devices is being gradually normalized.

When macOS is completely unable to run unauthorized executables I'll revisit this comment.

Until then, I'm completely in favor of putting all kinds of hurdles between uninformed users and executing random executables downloaded from the internet.

It’s not about being approved by Apple. It’s about a digital signature that proves the identity of the author.

Can users install apps on their iPhones, unless they were approved by Apple? That's the future of software freedom and user liberties on macOS.

To the satisfaction of Apple, not to the user.

Clearly it's about more than that. the article itself contains why that is.

The article mentions a "quality control process", so it's not only about the author being authorized. I view this as a first step to turn desktop computers into locked down iOS devices.

Currently that amounts to an automated malware scan[1] - the closest analog I can see is how Firefox requires browser addons to be submitted for approval even if not distributed through addons.mozilla.org

[1]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizin...

Ok, can I use EIDAS? That is surely stronger than whatever identity validation Apple is doing. (I know for sure.) And it doesn't cost $100.

That might be worth pursuing within the EU.

That said, if it required something like a "qualified electronic seal" I think the cost would be substantially more (600 EUR a year?), and Apple might turn around and start charging a notarization fee to recoup their infrastructural costs.

You can't get the digital signature without Apple's approval.

Same thing. Apple has to add an approval stamp. Why does it matter if I download spyware that's been signed or not? It's a control mechanism, the water starts out cool before it boils.

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