The good news is that SheepShaver builds and runs just fine!
There are a couple considerations though:
1. This is running on Intel, so it's not too surprising that everything's fine. Not much has changed since Catalina. I'm sure we'll have more trouble when ARM-based Macs start to appear. I do have hope that it will survive the transition for a couple reasons, although only time can tell. In its favor:
- Rosetta 2 should provide support for a while, and
- SheepShaver on Raspberry Pi and other ARM builds show a lot of promise.
- Its more proactive about forcing privacy and permissions, at least as far as I remember from my little use of Catalina. Sheep will refuse to run without being given disk access, even building from within Xcode. At present, when people install it in Big Sur, they'll need to manually add a rule for Sheepshaver to have full system access.
- There are a number of ways to workaround the issue (for instance, launching from terminal to leverage its api calls for permission), but a couple ideas for addressing it in code: a) SheepShaver could request access to the files and folders it needs after reading the preferences or b) adopt Apple's sandboxing structure and consolidate how Sheep stores its files (needed for Gatekeeper, App Store Signing, etc. although not needed for things like notarization).
- I don't like some of the changes Apple is implementing to the OS. One example is that System files are forbidden from changing from a default install, and are verified by checksum regularly! Kernel extensions are going away soon. I get the benefits to security, but I don't want it to become iPadOS.
- Big Sur is exceedingly, horribly buggy at present. In my opinion, it's hardly worth even trying to test with this beta for developers needing to port their apps. Just my experience so far.
Anyone else playing with the macOS 11 beta or perhaps applying for a Dev Transition Kit?