Certificates valid if account is changed?
My company only needed an Apple Developer Program account in order to sign macOS binaries. Because our scope was very limited, we enrolled with an individual account. Now our scope may grow, supporting more Apple features. As a result, we may need to change to an Organization account. If we change the account type, will this invalidate the certificate we use to sign the macOS binaries?
How are you distributing your programs? Directly, using Developer ID signing? Or via the Mac App Store?
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Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"
Directly to customers. This is a utility program for use with a dedicated system, not a commercial program.
Directly to customers.
OK. So you’re signing your code with a Developer ID Application signing identity? And, if you have any installer packages, you sign those with a Developer ID Installer one?
If so, I wouldn’t anticipate you hitting any problems with updating your Individual team to an Organization team. Developer ID signing identities are very stable. We don’t revoke them willy-nilly, because that would ‘break’ shipping products [1]. So your existing shipping code should continue to work.
I’m not 100% whether the existing signing identities will continue to work for new code. I suspect they will. But even if that’s true, it’d make sense for you to generate new ones because your existing ones have your Individual team name embedded in them, and it’d be nicer if you they had your Organization team name instead.
Note that you have to be careful when creating new Developer ID signing identities. I talk about this in depth in The Care and Feeding of Developer ID.
Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"
[1] For the official word on this, see Developer > Support > Certificates.