Mac users always like to defend some of the things Apple legitimately got right over most Linux distros, but always ignore that supply chain security and standard package management security on Apple (Homebrew) is akin to giving a bunch of internet randos root access to your machine with no oversight, vetting, or code review of any kind. At least most Linux distros do basic package signing.

Someone even thinking it is reasonable to try to use a mac to manage production would be grounds for me to ensure they never have production access.

Also, QubesOS is a thing, therefore QubesOS Linux users have way way better access to sandboxing than MacOS -and- signed devtools packages.

> The OS does actually protect you when it asks if the terminal should be able to access ~/Documents. You can say no, and then random stuff you curl|bash can't read files in that folder unless there's an exploit.

How is that different from creating a new user to run that script? This has been the standard practice on Linux for decades, and it is how I run tools like Codex and Claude on my machine. I wouldn't allow AI tools access to files, mount points, etc, owned by my main user.

This works best for terminal apps; for GUI apps such as Steam and games where running a separate graphical session isn't practical, you can use bubblewrap.

> The OS does actually protect you when it asks if the terminal should be able to access ~/Documents. You can say no, and then random stuff you curl|bash can't read files in that folder unless there's an exploit.

If you say no, you can’t use less or cat to read your documents. If you say yes then you are completely unprotected, forever, from anything you might run from the terminal.

> It also needs pervasive kernel enforced app identity

Doing like MacOS needs app identity. But this model is just wrong, because it answers the wrong question. Determining, once, whether Microsoft Word or VSCode may access all your documents, means that any Word document, using valid scripting or an exploit against Word, may access all your documents, and it means that you are fully exposed to anything you look at in vscode (as vscode has almost no security).

The right questions would be: May this document access this file or folder? May this project access anything outside its own folder? May this Python script read your screen? May this AI agent session access this USB device? Kernel-managed app identity is completely unhelpful for any of this.

(Frankly, kernel managed app identity seems unnecessary for most of what Mac does, too. App identity could be set by whatever launches the app, so long as the app’s resulting privileges are not allowed to exceed those of the launcher.)

> And it will suffer from a high degree of centralization where distributors have to approve every app

Please elaborate.

Sure, if you actually think that an Apple-like entitlement system protects you well, then I guess that a non-Apple entitlement system would need some trusted authority to grant entitlements. I do not think it protects anyone very well even if Apple, as the entitlement granter, is considered fully trustworthy.