Unfortunately (and this was my experience a couple of days ago, I could be wrong), when I wanted to download XCode to develop a native app, the site made me log in with an apple ID and accept terms and conditions. So, if writing software for Mac counts as using the Mac, you do need an Apple ID
To download Xcode you'll need an Apple ID. Developing for macOS / iOS without a free Apple ID doesn't make much sense though as you need it to sign the software and deploy it to test devices anyway.
That doesn't seem like an unreasonable requirement that you need an account with the platform vendor for that.
> Developing for macOS / iOS without a free Apple ID doesn't make much sense though as you need it to sign the software and deploy it to test devices anyway.
I'm a node / javascript developer. I make web applications. I remember having to install XCode for some dependencies. I don't make native Mac / iOS software, so it's a faulty assumption to assume that devs using Macs will be doing native dev. Even if I did, when working for a large-ish organization individual devs are not going to be the ones signing or publishing releases.
> I remember having to install XCode for some dependencies.
If you really don't want to create a free developer account to download the Xcode command line tools (That's probably what your dependency refers to, as the full Xcode is usually not necessary) you could just install or build the dependencies from another source?
You could also just download them via curl (There's direct links to the latest version out there) or `xcode-select --install` which both don't need an Apple ID.
