Gatekeeper bypass in Mac OS X applications without Mac developers

Question

Scenario

I want to release an application for Mac OS X, but not in the AppStore. The application works with 10.6 - 10.8 and higher.

Problem

Apple requires all applications for Mac OS X 10.8+ to be signed by the developer in order to pass Gatekeeper . And if I don’t tell each user to temporarily disable and re-enable the gatekeeper only for my application, according to this document and changing the Mountain Lion log ... my application will not be allowed to work.

From the wording on the Apple website, it seems I will have to pay $ 99.00 per year for the certificate. However, I do not want to pay $ 99 - I do not publish the AppStore!

Question

Is there a way to get around paying $ 99 per distribution for 10.8+? I know that my application will work with 10.6 and 10.7 but, according to Apple, it will not be allowed to work on 10.8 without a certificate. It's true? How can I distribute 10.8+ (preferably DMG) without a $ 99 distribution certificate? Thanks in advance!

Edit # 1

• DMG files are not authenticated using Gatekepper, but only the application itself.
• OS X Lion 10.7.5+ also has a gatekeeper * angry face *

Answer 1

Currently, Apple is unable to circumvent Gatekeeper without paying a membership fee of $ 99 per year. This seems unfair to me because it crowds out small developers (but this discussion is elsewhere).

For a rather cumbersome workaround, you can enable ReadMe or a note on your software download page to explain to users that they need to right-click your application, then click "Open" and then click "Confirm" to start it. I also found, experimenting that Gatekeeper does not run DMG file security checks or file installs , but only run / run applications. Therefore, in their DMG installer, you can specify some note in which the user is told exactly how to install and run the application.

Hopefully Apple will provide a workaround for developers (possibly a cheaper solution for limited membership) who are distributing free, open source software.

Answer 2

You do not need to acquire membership. Just get a code signing certificate from any agency and sign it with it. He then bypasses the gatekeeper check. Gatekeeper only checks if the application is associated with a specific developer or not.