It is painfull to see the xojo oficial opinion on this subject. “It is too dificult, we are lazy, app store is not worth it” 
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For them nothing is worth of it. They would have to provide update and bugtracking for it if it would be a xojo product. As far as I can remember was bugtracking and bugfixing not their best quality…seems like this would end up in a dead product and they know it. Appwrapper is a complex “animal” and needs love.
The world is full of that kind of people.
I would advise against it. Just let things happen.
Facts have no impact on a great genius’s decisions.
I did this for the App Kit.
In this instance, selling App Wrapper is about me being ready to move on. I’ve had a blast (and some frustration) these last 3 months with SwiftUI and found myself not wanting to go back to Xojo. So it makes sense (to me) that someone else take the reigns.
Sure, I’m a little sad to let it go, I’ve maintained App Wrapper for 12 years, and App Wrapper 4 was a massive re-write (18 months from design to release). But I’m ready for my next project, which is turning out to be just as potentially complicated, but it’s going to have a much wider appeal, in fact, I am hoping it appeal to every single Mac developer on the planet…
Correct, Code Signing itself is simple, but doing it for a wide range of apps is where it gets messy.
It’s not just code signing that App Wrapper does, there’s packing and the dozens and dozens of Entitlements and plist keys that are needed for modern Mac developement, also there’s components in there for checking the apps to find common mistakes or App Store rejection reasons that I know of and can test for.
There’s all the certificate verification code.
Mach-O modifying code.
And… I wanted it to look like a modern Mac App, which is where I spent a lot of time in the dark depths of the macOS and fighting the Xojo framework.
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Very true Norman, there is only one problem with it; they don’t see the value of App Wrapper.
Why did they ever let you go? That was also a stupid mistake they made!
One questions Norman, in your time, did they also working from home or did you had to come to the offices in Texas?
Sam, why not contacting Xojo Inc. and ask them if they are interested? Because of the value it brings to Xojo, maybe they will agree this time?
It is very regretfully you are leaving Xojo.
Chris
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TBH to this day I could not tell you the reason.
It was very nebulous then & still is.
Just a “we nob longer require your services” with a lot of hand waving
Worked from home
Only time we physically got together was before conferences
But we met daily over Zoom
And some of us had zoom on all the time just to chit chat as needed and to quickly ask a question of a colleague
It is their loss, and your win Norman. As you see things are going down with Xojo, such bad decisions doesn’t come unpunished.
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As complex as the process is (believe me, I barely understand any of it), it’s impressive how easy it’s been made in Electron and .NET. In electron you just add your developer info into a json file, and type yarn dist and it spits out a built, signed .app, or on windows, an installer.
With .NET, again add your developer info into the .csproj and type dotnet publish and it creates a signed and notarized .pkg on MacOS or an installer on Windows.
That’s what always surprised me about how complex it seemed to be when NOT using either of those tools. So, if it can be done for Electron and .NET, why not for Xojo?
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I’d like to get some feedback.
I’ve received some fairly angry private messages about not Open Sourcing App Wrapper and the Ohanaware App Kit. Now it feels like some of that is spilling out into the public with the Xojo forum post.
I don’t think I deserve any of the anger that I’ve experienced, trying to sell App Wrapper and/or the Ohanaware App Kit, but I’d be interested to know what y’all think.
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You do not deserve hate mail for choosing to maintain your needs.
It is an awfully entitled attitude to expect that someone open sources their 13 year investment with zero compensation, whilst trying to maintain paying bills in todays society.
A LOT of the Xojo community is old retired folks who are already set up for life. These folks can sometimes be a bit unaware of how comfortable they are, and how there are those of us who still work to put food on our tables. Don’t let these people get to you.
You already know if you can’t find someone to pay you what it’s worth that I would lovingly give App Wrapper a closed source home where it will be maintained with care and skill. Just send these folks the middle finger emoji, and don’t look back.
I wish you all the success you can have with your new ventures, and I look forward to seeing what you make.
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I may be old, but I’m still working! 
Seriously though how much would a hobbiest (which I think most who fall into that category would be ) have a significant need for App Wrapper? I as a “citizen developer” (i really dislike that term) have never had a need for it
BTW retired does not necessarily mean well off… Social security is not very generous… without substantial saving, retirement can be pretty rough, and it gets more expensive the older one gets (need to hire people to do things you can’t do for yourself anymore because you are not able)… Which is why I’m still working!
- Karen
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No one is entitled to criticise you or attack you for trying to sell App Wrapper. You created it, you invested your time and money in the development. Some people tend to forget that they have no moral or other rights on your software.
People could kindly ask and suggest that you open-source it. Whatever your decision will be, it has to be accepted.
These people could buy App Wrapper and then open-source it or ask Xojo to buy and open-source it.
This would be my response.
Going after you is a despicable act.
Cheers
Torsten
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It really depends on how much of the process the tool handles. You mentioned Electron produces an installer on Windows. Xojo doesn’t. How does it handle Mac distribution? If I wanted to distribute on a DMG, is it building the DMG for me to? Because that needs to be notarized.
It comes down to a matter of resources. It’s not that these processes are impossible, as you’ve noted. But Xojo is not in the business of building installers and the complexity that requires. It’s not in the business of building your disk images either. Xojo builds your app. You are responsible for the finishing touches that get it ready for distribution. If Xojo were larger and had the resources to implement a full distribution system, they might do that. But it’s beyond the scope what they can handle with their resources. It’s not malice, contempt, or incompetence, it’s just the reality of the number of man hours they have to spend on the project. Xojo has never in its lifetime produced ready-to-distribute products. Even before signing in the classic macOS days, you’d still need to pack your build into a Stuffit archive or something. Would I like to see that change? Of course I would. But we have to be realistic.
The reason Xojo won’t buy App Wrapper is because it only helps one of their targets. It doesn’t send a good message to say “here’s a nice tool to get your Mac apps ready for distribution, but Windows and Linux users are on their own.” Xojo does things cross platform, and App Wrapper not only isn’t, but has no hope of becoming cross platform.
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Call them out. Don’t let them hide their disrespect in private messages. Let everyone see what kind of person they are.
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Especially when their resources are used to prefix all controls with “Desktop” and invent API2.
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Simply: AppWrapper shall be sold to a third party while Sam is not in Xojo anymore. To maintain it he would have to be still in Xojo. That said it is a problem for him. He tries to concentrate on Swift and not on Xojo. This means: he needs a partner which buys the solution and provides the needed maintaining especially the change to API2.
Looking on the importance of the system I would always say: for the one buying it it is a good deal. Every Xojo customer needs it when releasing at least for macOS. There is no better way to notarize applications. So it is a good business fundament. And I believe that sam has an Idea of fair conditions for the buyer.
This leads to the question: why doing critics against sam? There is no place for criticism. Only a place for decide if or if not this could be a good business decision and the further question: is the needed knowledge in Xojo available on the buyers side? That are the only questions looking on it.
The product is good and possibly it would be better when and if the Xojo, inc. would buy it. But there is no sleight in heaven on 24. of december and so all of us know: will not be happened. I by self have no Idea why people trying to do critics. I believe that even all the customers will understand the decision of sam. So we should hope that it will find it’s new place.
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This isn’t strictly true. You can do this stuff without App Wrapper if you know what you’re doing. In my case, I use a script to produce my DMG for distribution, so why wouldn’t I have it do my signing and notarization too?
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True but you have to take care of every change on Apple Site. That costs much effort and many users are not able to. Therefore they need the App. I schuld have written that in an more exact form in the beginning, sorry for that. But the most users are in the need of it.