Installing and updating applications and other dependencies on a computer should be a solved problem by now, but almost every major desktop operating system offers several options without a really clear answer to the question “which is best?”
Linux, despite long-established package managers such as suitable, debAnd rpm, to name a few, still suffers from confusion and inconsistency between open source and proprietary installations, and between developer tools and more user-oriented tools. In addition, many package developers do not even distribute their packages to package managers, or the versions they contain are out of date.
Things are not much better on Windows. There are several “official” and unofficial ways to install applications and keep them up to date, including a App Store, Installation packagesand several community-maintained options.
As for macOS, Apple introduced the Mac App Store 13 years ago, and while it does a decent job, it also lacks many vendors and tools, largely due to Apple's notoriously high fees and policies that limit what types of apps developers can offer in the store. This means macOS still suffers from many of the same issues as Windows, with multiple alternative methods of installing apps, and keeping them up to date is a matter of personal responsibility, time, and effort.
Enter Homebrew
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Originally designed as an option for developers to maintain the dependencies they often need to develop, test and run their work, Home brewed has become so much more in its 15-year history. Offers methods for installing graphical and proprietary applications with BarrelsBackground management Serviceswhich creates a reproducible list of the components installed on a computer with Brew filesand much more.
It has even been merged with a community-maintained (or “forked” in open source) version for Linux (“Linuxbrew”), providing another package management option for the Linux ecosystem.
At various points in its history, it has been the most popular and most followed project on GitHub. But there have also been times when its popularity and architecture have brought the infrastructure it uses to an abrupt halt.
In short, if I meet a developer using a Mac, I can almost guarantee they're using Homebrew. That's how widespread it is. Even if you're not a developer, I recommend it as the best (if not only) option on macOS for managing a variety of applications from different sources.
Homebrew History
Homebrew was originally developed in 2009 by Max Howell in the Ruby programming language and has been consistently popular, well maintained and updated ever since. It is always up to date with the most important macOS and Apple updates, such as the loss of support for 32-bit applications in macOS Catalina and the switch to Apple Silicon. While there is no Windows version, Chocolatey works similarly and was probably inspired by homebrew.
It was not the first attempt at a macOS package manager. finch is eight years older than this and the second best known option, MacPorts is seven years older than MacPorts. But even though several former Apple employees started MacPorts and the syntax may be more similar to that of Linux package managers, homebrew has far eclipsed MacPorts over the past decade.
Somewhere in a guest room in Scotland
Despite this long history and popularity, I was initially surprised to learn that the project's lead maintainer, Mike McQuaid, had left his ten-year role at GitHub to start his own company since 2009. When I heard that this lead maintainer of one of the world's most popular and successful open source projects had a day job, I was surprised.
That's what open source is like, especially when you run a project in the more traditional, community-first way that Homebrew does. It was never designed to create a startup opportunity or with the intention of becoming a foundation, but rather just to meet the needs of users.
I asked Mike what it's like to maintain one of the largest open source projects, mostly in his spare time, in the far north of Europe. “The tech industry isn't quite as big here as it is in the US, but today a young guy came up to me at the gym and said, 'Oh, are you the homebrew guy? I can't believe a tech star goes to my gym!' As a Scot, I felt a little ashamed, public recognition and compliments are rare here,” he replied.
“Very little time” for loud and demanding users
As with anything that attracts a lot of use and attention, there are many mixed and extreme opinions on homebrew, and processing and filtering these opinions requires a hard point of view, something that Mike has spoken about it in numerous interviews and at conferences.
“When you're working on a big project, you get a lot of hate. Either people are just frustrated because they hit a bug, or because you changed something but they didn't read the release notes and now something is broken,” says Mike when I ask him how he deals with the constant barrage of communication.
“There are a lot of demanding, loud users in the open source space who contribute very little and like to yell at people and make them feel bad. One of my strengths is that I have very little time for these people and just block them immediately or close their issues.”
More importantly, an open source project is often managed and maintained by a group of people. Homebrew has several dozen maintainers and nearly a thousand contributors in total. Mike explains that all of these people deserve to be treated with respect by users, too. “I am also very protective of my caregivers and don’t want them to be treated like that.”
Workbrew, Homebrew for companies
But despite these features and widespread adoption, Homebrew has always lacked the ability to work well with user teams. Here comes Working brewa company Mike founded with two other homebrew maintainers steps in.
Often, large companies use tools like or similar to Mobile Device Management (MDM) to control what their employees can install and run on their computers. The same applies to the provisioning of new machines.
Unlike Windows, macOS has some tools and services to help new employees get the laptop setup they need when they start a new job. However, these are not widely supported and Mac users are usually used to more freedom in how they use their devices. While macOS is less prone to some of the security and vulnerability issues of Windows, it is no less prone to regulatory or governance issues such as tracking vulnerable software or software that does not meet licensing requirements.
However, since developers using macOS are used to using Homebrew, Workbrew acts as an interface between these two worlds. It is integrated with MDM and provisioning tools and allows enterprise IT administrators to give their developers the freedom they want, but impose restrictions on the software and versions they can install.
Workbrew combines various Homebrew features with custom Glue to create a workflow for setting up and maintaining Mac machines. It adds new features that the core Homebrew maintainers had no interest in, such as admin and reporting dashboards for a fleet of machines, and brings more general improvements to the core project.
Open source purist
Considering Mike's motivation for keeping Homebrew in the “traditional open source” model, I asked him how he planned to separate and meet the needs of the project and the company.
“We've seen a lot of turnover in the last few years with companies that made licensing decisions five or ten years ago that have now changed quite dramatically and have generated quite a bit of backlash from the community,” Mike said. “I'm very sensitive to that and I'm a bit of an open source purist in that I still think that the Definition of open source by the Open Source Initiative to be what open source means. If you don't do that, then you can be something else, but I think you're probably not open source.”
And as for separating his dual role and that of his co-founder, Mike explains: “I am the CTO and co-founder of Workbrew and the project lead of Homebrew. The project lead at Homebrew is an elected position.” Every year the maintainers and the community choose a candidate.
“But when I tell the homebrew maintainers who work with us on Workbrew, I always say: When we're working on Workbrew, I'm your boss now, but when we're working on Homebrew, I'm not your boss,” Mike adds. “If you think I say something and it's a bad idea, tell me it's a bad idea, right?”
The company is keeping its early progress in private beta for now, but you can expect an announcement soon. And what about homebrew? Well, in the best “open source” style, that is and always will be the responsibility of the community.
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