Poll: How about an alliance against Apple strategies? (Catalina, OpenGL...)

[stratology]

They test Firefox and Chrome performance, but not Safari performance, to evaluate macOS? And they do not take energy consumption in Chrome into account, because no-one would ever use a laptop IRL? OK.

Testing performance on technology that has been replaced and abandoned years ago (OpenGL on macOS), rather than testing Metal performance, is also a way to cheat deliberately to put a bias on results.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Apple could of course provide a solution for users who want to run an old app or plugin that is not code signed/notarized. They could allow a user themselves to submit a package/bundle to the online malware check and pass it back with an attached ticket that allows it to run just on that user's machine. Apple keep a database of all their hardware and all their users so, conceptually, that would be simple to do. It would be a fix for cases where the advice 'go back to the developer' is not an option.

Apple's interest is to monetize, so this will never be implemented, because this can't be monetized in any measurable amount. Everybody forgets that eventual masterplan is to take 30% of all macos software sales, be it plugins or anything else.

[Rockatansky]

You're comparing the private life of devs vs. what they have to spent for their business?

Yes. Because a developer who is a private entity who codes for fun or as a hobby is not a commercial business that codes in order to generate income to further fund its own existence.

And I'd bet many of them have the mac just as a build machine, not even doing something else on it.

Sorry, if you can justify affording a Mac 'just as a build machine', then Shirley you can afford $99 p.a. for a code-signing certificate.

The plugins run on all PCs without restrictions.

Yes. Great. Really. Say there's a plugin that can be freely downloaded as a demo, and then unlocked with a serial number, since that is arguably quite a common scenario. Someone downloads the demo .dll from the website, tampers with the copy protection and generates a plugin .dll that doesn't require a serial number to run. Existence of the developer: threatened. The evildoer then proceeds to wrap the .dll in a "pre-acrivated try before you buy" installer, which doesn't only install the hacked .dll, but also a crypto-miner or a trojan on the side, which is currently quite a common scheme entire warez sites are built on. If you have a worm or virus on your machine, it attaches itself to your .dll and finds its way onto the user's system. Computer or even the online existence of the user: threatened.

I never heard anyone ever tell me that they skipped my plugins as they are not code signed. I don't even provide installers and no one ever complained.

Thank you for making a point for me. Users are not developers, so they don't know what code-signing is, they barely know how things on their own computer work. All they care about is downloading something and running it. And since nothing needs to be code-signed on Windows, a typical Windows user is conditioned from the start to just click away any 'this could hurt your computer' warnings, because they just keep popping up for every bloody occasion. Because nothing is ever code-signed, because there is no enforcement for code-signing. So even if Defender or a virus scanner report potential malware, the user will just assume this is because the dum-dum scanner doesn't know what an audio plugin .dll is, thus they will just click any warnings away, thereby actively inviting the evil into their system. With enforced code-signing for executables and notarizing for installers, the above scenario is not possible anymore.

If I pay for Netflix or anything else you named I get something in return. If I pay for code-signing I have no benefit.

I would argue that eliminating the possibility for hacked .dlls that threaten a payware developer's existence and eliminating the possibility for hacked installers that threaten their users existence is quite a lot of benefit for everyone. Yes, I know, I wrote 'payware'.

Because creating plugins is a hobby for me. I don't pay anything for it, all I invest is time which I don't mind as this is a hobby.

A hobby (by definition) is something that is conducted for selfish purposes. You do it for the fun, for the love, for the challenge, or for the sheer hell of it, or maybe because it's easy and it helps you to waste time. If you conduct a hobby in a group together with other people, like soccer or boule, that is usually the case because comparing your own performance at that hobby to the performance of others acts as an incentive to improve your own performance at it. Or because the social component of hanging out with other participants offers a chance to discuss and mingle and share tricks or techniques, usually to improve your own performance at the hobby as well. All pretty selfish things in my book.
If you take up a hobby for yourself, you're liable to spend money for things that help you conduct that hobby. You like puzzles and riddles, you purchase puzzles and riddles. You like cooking, you purchase utilities and condiments. You like whittling or woodwork, you buy knives and chisels and drills. You like tuning your car, you'll need a car (i.e. expensive dongle) or at least the necessary tools and machinery. You like sitting on a horse's back and bouncing on your balls, you'll need to purchase the helmet and some other gear as well. You like cutting things up and colouring them, you're likely to buy some x-acto knives and paper and colouring materials. This is all money that goes out of the window for no altrusitic purpose, it's just the ticket that gets you addmission to conducting that hobby. Any musician (by that I mean people playing musical instruments) needs to purchase their instrument and additional equipment. A guitar, a bass, a drumset, a microphone stand, a stand for notes, an amplifier, a piano, a computer with software, maybe lessons, money for a practice room so the noise doesn't annoy the neighbours. Any or all of those things. None of that is money spent for altruistic purposes. It's all money that goes out of the window without any guarantee or promise or even an outlook of getting anything back from it, ever. It's all money that is spent because that person wants to play that instrument as a hobby. A hobby is something that revolves entirely around you. If you don't feel like paying for golf clubs or bowling shoes or horse saddles, then you either don't go golfing, bowling or riding horses - or you will pay for loaned equipment. Either way, you pay. One could argue that hobbies like expressive figure posing or rhythmic clapping don't require paying any money at all, certainly, but then that's not what you're doing, right?

Why should I pay something to provide people with free software?

Because, the above point of hobbies inherently costing money aside, as soon as you provide something to other people, it's no longer just about you. Your actions affect the lives of others. If you like cooking things and giving the cooked food to others for free, you can still be held accountable for what that food does to others. Give a starving homeless person a slice of cake that contains the wrong kind of nuts, they'll swell up and die and you'll be held accountable, and rightly so. Even if you let the homeless person sign a piece of paper that relieves you of all accountability before you gave them the cake. Even if the homeless person asked you to bake that cake in the first place. If some sort of ransomware virus originates from your plugin's zip file and now holds a user's system and their entire data hostage, something you did out of goodwill now affects the life of others negatively. Hell, as soon as you take your hobby of rolling around on a glorified plank with four wheels outside on the street and you cause an accident by doing so, something that was never intended to affect the lives of others has now negatively affected the lives of others. As soon as you take your hobby into the public, you need to deal with being held accountable for it. Something that helps you secure what you pass on to others for free should not be opposed straight away, just because it means putting down a little cash, which is a given for most selfishly conducted hobbies already, anyway.

[DPhil]

You buy/get plugins as is, not for future features, updates/fixes or compatibility. It's also your own decision to upgrade to Catalina and potentially lose plugins or to just use the fine working system you're already running. No need to jump on the hype train and always own newest technique or OS

[JunSev]

mod edit: nope, doesnt matter what thread still nope

[Markus Krause]

Wow. I have developing free software for 8 years 1992-2000 (sound-generator, allsoundtracker AST, EMU8000 sampler, ...).
It really shocks me how some users of free software behave towards the ones who spend their freetime to supply them with freebies.
It seems that they are not aware at all how much work it is.
And they also seem to be not aware how few money you earn when you own an unknown tiny plugin company

[LoudMax]

You're comparing the private life of devs vs. what they have to spent for their business?

Yes. Because a developer who is a private entity who codes for fun or as a hobby is not a commercial business that codes in order to generate income to further fund its own existence.

And I'd bet many of them have the mac just as a build machine, not even doing something else on it.

Sorry, if you can justify affording a Mac 'just as a build machine', then Shirley you can afford $99 p.a. for a code-signing certificate.

The plugins run on all PCs without restrictions.

Yes. Great. Really. Say there's a plugin that can be freely downloaded as a demo, and then unlocked with a serial number, since that is arguably quite a common scenario. Someone downloads the demo .dll from the website, tampers with the copy protection and generates a plugin .dll that doesn't require a serial number to run. Existence of the developer: threatened. The evildoer then proceeds to wrap the .dll in a "pre-acrivated try before you buy" installer, which doesn't only install the hacked .dll, but also a crypto-miner or a trojan on the side, which is currently quite a common scheme entire warez sites are built on. If you have a worm or virus on your machine, it attaches itself to your .dll and finds its way onto the user's system. Computer or even the online existence of the user: threatened.

I never heard anyone ever tell me that they skipped my plugins as they are not code signed. I don't even provide installers and no one ever complained.

Thank you for making a point for me. Users are not developers, so they don't know what code-signing is, they barely know how things on their own computer work. All they care about is downloading something and running it. And since nothing needs to be code-signed on Windows, a typical Windows user is conditioned from the start to just click away any 'this could hurt your computer' warnings, because they just keep popping up for every bloody occasion. Because nothing is ever code-signed, because there is no enforcement for code-signing. So even if Defender or a virus scanner report potential malware, the user will just assume this is because the dum-dum scanner doesn't know what an audio plugin .dll is, thus they will just click any warnings away, thereby actively inviting the evil into their system. With enforced code-signing for executables and notarizing for installers, the above scenario is not possible anymore.

If I pay for Netflix or anything else you named I get something in return. If I pay for code-signing I have no benefit.

I would argue that eliminating the possibility for hacked .dlls that threaten a payware developer's existence and eliminating the possibility for hacked installers that threaten their users existence is quite a lot of benefit for everyone. Yes, I know, I wrote 'payware'.

Because creating plugins is a hobby for me. I don't pay anything for it, all I invest is time which I don't mind as this is a hobby.

A hobby (by definition) is something that is conducted for selfish purposes. You do it for the fun, for the love, for the challenge, or for the sheer hell of it, or maybe because it's easy and it helps you to waste time. If you conduct a hobby in a group together with other people, like soccer or boule, that is usually the case because comparing your own performance at that hobby to the performance of others acts as an incentive to improve your own performance at it. Or because the social component of hanging out with other participants offers a chance to discuss and mingle and share tricks or techniques, usually to improve your own performance at the hobby as well. All pretty selfish things in my book.
If you take up a hobby for yourself, you're liable to spend money for things that help you conduct that hobby. You like puzzles and riddles, you purchase puzzles and riddles. You like cooking, you purchase utilities and condiments. You like whittling or woodwork, you buy knives and chisels and drills. You like tuning your car, you'll need a car (i.e. expensive dongle) or at least the necessary tools and machinery. You like sitting on a horse's back and bouncing on your balls, you'll need to purchase the helmet and some other gear as well. You like cutting things up and colouring them, you're likely to buy some x-acto knives and paper and colouring materials. This is all money that goes out of the window for no altrusitic purpose, it's just the ticket that gets you addmission to conducting that hobby. Any musician (by that I mean people playing musical instruments) needs to purchase their instrument and additional equipment. A guitar, a bass, a drumset, a microphone stand, a stand for notes, an amplifier, a piano, a computer with software, maybe lessons, money for a practice room so the noise doesn't annoy the neighbours. Any or all of those things. None of that is money spent for altruistic purposes. It's all money that goes out of the window without any guarantee or promise or even an outlook of getting anything back from it, ever. It's all money that is spent because that person wants to play that instrument as a hobby. A hobby is something that revolves entirely around you. If you don't feel like paying for golf clubs or bowling shoes or horse saddles, then you either don't go golfing, bowling or riding horses - or you will pay for loaned equipment. Either way, you pay. One could argue that hobbies like expressive figure posing or rhythmic clapping don't require paying any money at all, certainly, but then that's not what you're doing, right?

Why should I pay something to provide people with free software?

Because, the above point of hobbies inherently costing money aside, as soon as you provide something to other people, it's no longer just about you. Your actions affect the lives of others. If you like cooking things and giving the cooked food to others for free, you can still be held accountable for what that food does to others. Give a starving homeless person a slice of cake that contains the wrong kind of nuts, they'll swell up and die and you'll be held accountable, and rightly so. Even if you let the homeless person sign a piece of paper that relieves you of all accountability before you gave them the cake. Even if the homeless person asked you to bake that cake in the first place. If some sort of ransomware virus originates from your plugin's zip file and now holds a user's system and their entire data hostage, something you did out of goodwill now affects the life of others negatively. Hell, as soon as you take your hobby of rolling around on a glorified plank with four wheels outside on the street and you cause an accident by doing so, something that was never intended to affect the lives of others has now negatively affected the lives of others. As soon as you take your hobby into the public, you need to deal with being held accountable for it. Something that helps you secure what you pass on to others for free should not be opposed straight away, just because it means putting down a little cash, which is a given for most selfishly conducted hobbies already, anyway.

You scare me!
Relax, and try to accept other people´s decisions.

[machinesworking]

And they also seem to be not aware how few money you earn when you own an unknown tiny plugin company

You probably shouldn't go ther. Some of us exist at poverty level who are avid users of plug ins. I've got multiple injuries from my physically labor intensive job over the years, I have little or no sympathy for anyone complaining about not being the best paid programmer out there. Plus as a self employed person myself, although I realize it's more work than working for a company, I also realize that if you do it, you will never want to go back to having a boss.
Yes it's hard, no, you don't deserve any sympathy whatsoever for having a dream job. Just get enough exercise in, the biggest problem with desk jobs is disease from body atrophy. Your paycheck though? you would not be able to survive on what I make a year, period.

[vurt]

And they also seem to be not aware how few money you earn when you own an unknown tiny plugin company

You probably shouldn't go ther. Some of us exist at poverty level who are avid users of plug ins. I've got multiple injuries from my physically labor intensive job over the years, I have little or no sympathy for anyone complaining about not being the best paid programmer out there. Plus as a self employed person myself, although I realize it's more work than working for a company, I also realize that if you do it, you will never want to go back to having a boss.
Yes it's hard, no, you don't deserve any sympathy whatsoever for having a dream job. Just get enough exercise in, the biggest problem with desk jobs is disease from body atrophy. Your paycheck though? you would not be able to survive on what I make a year, period.

i think it was a reply to assumptions made rather than a "woest me" type post?

[Markus Krause]

I did not refer my reply to my own situation or my own company at all.

After reading some post in this thread I was completely shocked how the users of freeware treat the people who spend their freetime to supply them with freeware

[syntonica]

I did not refer my reply to my own situation or my own company at all.

After reading some post in this thread I was completely shocked how the users of freeware treat the people who spend their freetime to supply them with freeware

Endusers totally suck!

The ones you wish would report issues tend to just abandon the software since it's free and move on. The ones that do complain, well...

[Markus Krause]

I am not sure if this is irony or not. Just in case it should be not: I never said that end-users suck.

As a fellow developer it upsets me how the users of the freeware-fellow-developer treat him just because he refuses to pay $99 to Apple to be able to supply further free software to them

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

But as a fellow developer it upsets me how the users of the freeware-fellow-developer treat him just because he refuses to pay $99 to Apple to be able to supply further free software to them

"Users"? Seems like one member has taken a contrary position, which is something he has a right to do

[syntonica]

I am not sure if this is irony or not. Just in case it should be not: I never said that end-users suck.

As a fellow developer it upsets me how the users of the freeware-fellow-developer treat him just because he refuses to pay $99 to Apple to be able to supply further free software to them

I'm mostly joking about end-users. If it wasn't for them, well...

I still don't have a license to develop! I haven't needed one, and even if I did, it's so much cheaper than being a Mac developer in the old days. As far as hobbies go, this one has only cost me time so far.

Windows gives you a yearly license to use MSVC that you have to re-up. When my license expired, I had no clue what my password was, so I just ditched 6GB of ugly Microsoft fat and installed MinGW-64 and CodeBlocks, at about 500MB. I'm about ready to do the same to Xcode, despite it being free. I've actually found there's a bug in whatever version of clang Xcode 9 uses, which I never thought I could or would.

[Magnut]

Just saying MSVC community edition is free too (for very likely most usual devs in audio) and VSCode is completely free. And both are meanwhile cross platform iirc.