What is the lifetime of Mac Developer ID signed certificates?

Question

I have a small open source OSX project I've been working on that I'd like to distribute outside the App Store.

With the impending release of Mountain Lion, I'd like to provide a certificate to make installation a little less painful.

With the App Store, you are required to keep paying the annual $99/year program fee—if your membership runs out, they pull your app from the store.

Does anyone know if it will work the same for Developer ID signed certificates? If my membership lapses, will they revoke my cert?

I'm willing to pay a one-time fee of $99, but I don't think it'd be worth it for me to keep renewing year over year.

Also, if you know for a fact that this info is under NDA, feel free to close this out.

Answer 1

IANAL, but the program agreement explicitly specifies terms under which you can continue signing with non-App Store certificates after you leave the paid program, and the Developer ID certificates I've seen have expiration dates five years out. Your best bet is probably to ask Apple directly, and if you can't seem to get a clear answer, file a bug (IIRC, bugreport.apple.com only requires free registration).