The context of the discussion is that this will change in the future. I have predicted that from the day Gatekeeper was invented. I still hope I'm wrong and it will always remain possible to run unsigned apps on MacOS.
If this changes some day, I already know what I tell the users of my program, though: I, the developer, have not made any changes to the application and the reason why it no longer runs is solely Apple's responsibility. Please contact Apple's Customer Support and/or sue the company in case you cannot access your data any longer.
Further support requests will then be forwarded to Apple.
>I have predicted that from the day Gatekeeper was invented.
And I have predicted people like you are wrong because there is no hardware backing for it yet, unless by "the future" you mean literally a good decade or more down the line which for tech is getting into really hazy land. But equating the Mac to iOS devices right now just plain makes no sense because the Mac doesn't have that whole hardware chain. iOS isn't magic, while I think Apple's level of lockdown should be illegal on a cultural level on a technical level what enables it is the hardware. On the Mac maybe the newest ones with Apple's T-series chips represents first steps in that direction, and of course if Apple does in fact someday decide to switch the Mac from x86 to their own ARM-based processors they'd have far more power there. But even that doesn't solve the legacy issue, and at this point Apple has built a great deal of culture and brand around supporting hardware for a long time. They still support Mojave officially on 2010 Mac Pros [1] for example, and right now they're still selling new Macs without even T-chips. Sure, it's not impossible that they could release an ARM Mac system in 2020 and then immediately put all "legacy Macs" on life support [2], but that'd a big a pretty surprising choice wouldn't it? It'd engender a lot of justified fury.
>If this changes some day, I already know what I tell the users of my program, though
I hope you realize how pointless this is likely to be? It'd be better to work on a political answer around it and inform your users accordingly.
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1: A few unfortunate caveats around features hampered by the MP's very old EFI aside, which is a complex discussion on its own.
2: Though I'd expect lawsuits over a decision like that at least in the EU.
It's not pointless at all, I wasn't talking about sending a political message but about harsh reality. If MacOS closes down, I will simply be unable to support Mac users of my apps and have no transition path for them. I have good export options in my application, and that's about all I can do.
As for the rest of your post, I don't get it. To close their ecosystem Apple only has take away the option to make Gatekeeper exceptions for unsigned apps and the option to switch off Gatekeeper. I wasn't talking about anti-jailbreaking protections, it suffices that you'd have to hack the OS and violate the EULA in order to run unsigned apps.
Whether that happens or not I don't know. So far, the path has been down that road. (Just look at the gradual changes in Gatekeeper, introduction of sandboxing, unification of iOS and MacOs, etc.)
