Panic devs offer an apology on GateKeeper

Pretty reasoned analysis by the developers at Panic of Apple’s new GateKeeper feature. Like many of the commenters I’m not convinced. It’s clear to me that Apple will revoke the ability to install non app-store apps as soon as it makes financial sense for them. No other considerations need apply. From the post: “Although security is a vital feature for Apple, developers, and users alike, being unable to run unsigned code cuts a lot of really great things off at the knees. You wouldn’t, for example, be able to just download and run an open source project unless it had been submitted to and reviewed by the App Store. Highly disruptive software (think Napster or BitTorrent) may have not been able to exist on the Mac platform since it would have been likely to run afoul of Apple’s App Store guidelines. Major vendors such as Adobe and Microsoft might have withdrawn their support for the platform, being unwilling to cede 30% of their revenue to App Store distribution. So, for a while, there was a great deal of consternation among Mac developers, including this author, that this might be the route Apple would take….” Read more: http://www.panic.com/blog/2012/02/about-gatekeeper/