A concern in my University department is that some of the FOSS/small scale software we teach on won't work on our students' shiny new M1 Macs. Should we be worried?
If not, everything should run through Rosetta 2. Apple did eventually pull the original Rosetta, so who knows how long they will keep the feature, but in the short term I can't imagine it being a problem.
The original Rosetta was only useful for legacy Mac software though; this one will continue to be useful for new x86 software that gets written. I think it will last a lot longer.
On iOS they don't.
And with this new direction of macOS & ARM, it's not out of the question the same will happen on the desktop.
EDIT: why the downvotes? Seriously - what's wrong with what I said ... I'm genuinely curious.
Probably because currently MacOS just has a slightly more nagging version of Window's UAC when it comes to unsigned software.
Saying that they will disable it holds about the same amount of weight as saying Microsoft will make Windows Win10 S mode only. Is it possible? Maybe, but neither company is going to shoot themselves in the foot like that in the current market.