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News is just now coming out about Gatekeeper in Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8). It sounds like a reasonable compromise, but my concern is that this is a stepping stone towards Apple locking down Mac development even further. A quote about sacrificing liberties for a little protection and deserving neither springs to mind.

Still, I'm not opposed to the idea of Developer IDs and making that the default setting in Gatekeeper, particularly if I can choose that setting and still launch and run code that isn't signed simply by confirming that I'd like to do so.

But I will say that Apple needs to:

• Ensure that Developer IDs are relatively easy to obtain.
• Are targeted at the specific group or individual, so that someone can't obtain an ID, found to be distributing malware, and then easily obtain a different ID.
• NOT fool around with saying what is or isn't malware. A broad definition should be provided and rigorously adhered to, because porn or political apps or apps that "have enough competition already" are not necessarily malware. Imagine how lousy it would be for someone's competitor to allege malware and have Apple take action?
• Do a better job than they've done with the iOS App Store.
• NOT go beyond this stage. I will not appreciate having developers feel "squeezed" into the Mac App Store.

Those are my concerns. I hope this is a good thing, and I'm giving Apple the benefit of the doubt here. Famous last words, right?

P.S. Analyzr Pro and Analyzr Student are niche apps that cost $59 and $299-$599. We regularly offer coupons and discounts, etc. We like knowing who our customers are simply so that we can provide great support (we don't even email them). As such, we're not keen to put our apps in the Mac App Store and would resent any pressure to do so. Getting a Developer ID, however, represents no pressure to do so, again so long as it's easy, inexpensive, and fairly handled.

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