[GNC] GnuCash for Apple Silicon Macs

[John Ralls]

> On Jul 2, 2024, at 11:49 AM, David Reiser via gnucash-user <gnucash-user at gnucash.org> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> On Jul 2, 2024, at 14:27, R Losey <rlosey at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> On Tue, Jul 2, 2024 at 12:55 PM Robert Zuccherato <
>> robert.zuccherato at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Hello,
>>> 
>>> I am sending this email because I am wondering about the status of
>>> GnuCash compiled for Apple silicon Macs.  Currently, we just have
>>> available for download binaries for Intel Macs.  They run fine on Apple
>>> silicon Macs under Rosetta 2.  However, Apple is not going to support
>>> Rosetta 2 forever.  At some point in the future, they will remove it in
>>> an update to MacOS.  I understand that the reason binaries are not
>>> available is that WebKitGtk crashes when built for Apple silicon.  It
>>> appears that no progress has been made in fixing the WebKitGtk bug that
>>> causes the crash.  Thus, what are the future plans for GnuCash on MacOS?
>>> When Apple removes Rosetta 2 will Mac users be left out in the cold?
>>> 
>>> Thanks,
>>> 
>>>      Robert Zuccherato.
>>> 
>> 
>> I am also interested, as my M1 iMac is my main computer, and I do about 60%
>> of my GnuCash data entry on it.
>> 
>> Has Apple given a date when they won't support Rosetta 2?
>> 
> No. And it would be somewhere between unusual and unheard of for Apple to comment this soon about it.
> 
> Rosetta 1 was around for 5 years. So maybe 2026 will be the end of Rosetta 2. We might not hear of its demise until WWDC 26, with the axe falling in September.
> 
> If the discontinuation is strictly a commercial decision, maybe it stays around longer. If something technical arises in some intervening system update, Rosetta could disappear earlier and very suddenly.
> 
> I doubt Apple themselves knows for sure, so I don’t expect any announcement soon.

Sherlock posted a fix for the WebKit crash to gnucash-devel back in April but I haven’t had time to try it out. 

My guess about Rosetta is that it will be around as long as Apple continues to support the last Intel Macs with macOS. They were still selling Intel Mac Pros until a year ago—and those were d*****d expensive—so I expect we’ve got at least another 5 years of Intel support in macOS.

Regards,
John Ralls