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A comment on Signing apps for Mountain Lion without Xcode. Parent comment

Re:Signing apps for Mountain Lion without Xcode by Sanddancer on Sunday November 25, 2012 @12:20PM (#4828612)
The problem is that Apple is the one and only gatekeeper here. $99 for a lot of apps, like independent games made for a competition, is a very high barrier to entry. Were Apple to allow third party certificates, and/or use the existing ecosystem for software signing certificates, there would be a lot fewer issues with this.
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Re:Signing apps for Mountain Lion without Xcode by Someone on Sunday November 25, 2012 @02:46PM (#4829048)
I agree that Apple should not be the (sole) one signing apps for their OSes.

However, I doubt a dialog "this app was signed by 'Evil Privacy Invaders, inc'. You haven't trusted their software before. Do you want to do that now?" would deter the typical user from clicking 'Yes, always'.

So, the best they could do is allow a fixed set of regulated code signers. I do not see how that would be much of a change from the current situation.

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Re:Signing apps for Mountain Lion without Xcode by harpastum on Sunday November 25, 2012 @03:41PM (#4829226)
$99/year is only if developers want to submit apps to the App Store. Xcode itself is free, and non-appstore apps can be signed for free with it.
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Re:Signing apps for Mountain Lion without Xcode by plorkyeran on Sunday November 25, 2012 @04:11PM (#4829297)
You can't sign apps (even for non-appstore distribution) without a developer ID, which requires a $99/year developer account.
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Re:Signing apps for Mountain Lion without Xcode by deathchill on Sunday November 25, 2012 @12:58PM (#4828708)
I thought that as it works currently you can sign up as a free developer and generate certificates so your apps can run on ML.
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Re:Signing apps for Mountain Lion without Xcode by aioprisan on Sunday November 25, 2012 @12:29PM (#4828625)
who else should be the gatekeeper on their own platform? $99/year is not a lot.
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Re:Signing apps for Mountain Lion without Xcode by Sanddancer on Sunday November 25, 2012 @01:50PM (#4828854)
/I/ should be the gatekeeper on /my/ device. Apple's all or nothing approach means that for hobbyist usage, or internal app distribution, etc, you still have to pay that $99/year, even if it's not going into the regular ecosystem.
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Re:Signing apps for Mountain Lion without Xcode by Flow on Sunday November 25, 2012 @02:04PM (#4828900)
You know /YOU/ can turn it off on /YOUR/ device, right?
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Re:Signing apps for Mountain Lion without Xcode by Sanddancer on Sunday November 25, 2012 @02:26PM (#4828966)
Yes, I know it can be turned off. However, there's no way to import 3rd party roots into gatekeeper. That's what I meant by all or nothing.
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Re:Signing apps for Mountain Lion without Xcode by Flow on Monday November 26, 2012 @12:14PM (#4832830)
That's true and probably by design. ;)

A workaround could perhaps be to use anti-virus software, at least Symantec has reputation based whitelisting.

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Re:Signing apps for Mountain Lion without Xcode by maaku on Sunday November 25, 2012 @12:49PM (#4828678)
For some people (students, hobbyists), it is.
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