Homebrew with Mike McQuaid

The Developers' Bakery

If you’re developing on macOS, then you probably know what we’re going to talk about: Homebrew 🍺 the most popular package manager for macOS.

If you don’t know Homebrew, it’s a command-line tool that allows you to install software on your Mac. We could call it “the missing app store” for your console. But Homebrew is much more than that! There is an entire ecosystem of contributors that maintain formulas to make it easy to install software on your Mac.

Today I have the honor to speak with Mike McQuaid, the Homebrew project leader. In this episode we’re going to talk about how Homebrew started, how it works internally, how it’s funded, and how you can contribute to it. I’m glad I also had the chance to touch on some more contentious topics like telemetry and handling burnout in the OSS space.

Enjoy the show 👨‍🍳

Show Notes

• 00.11 Intro
• 00.57 Episode Start
• 01.32 Mike’s Introduction
• 02.31 What is Homebrew?
• 03.07 The history of Homebrew
• 06.56 Have you ever felt you were done with Homebrew?
• 10.58 What happens when you brew install?
• 12.45 What is a formula?
• 15.55 Rolling release package manager
• 17.04 What is a cask?
• 20.01 Brew bundle
• 21.34 Where is so much software stored?
• 23.32 Homebrew trust model
• 27.57 What’s the most downloaded package?
• 29.27 Telemetry & Open Source
• 32.50 Opt-in vs Opt-out telemetry
• 40.33 Entitelment in the OSS space & handling burnouts
• 43.20 How is Homebrew funded?
• 48.18 Homebrew & Legal entity
• 50.28 How to become a Homebrew maintainer?
• 52.39 Do-ocracy
• 53.53 Engaging with the Homebrew community
• 54.49 What’s next for Homebrew?
• 57.17 Further reading
• 58.53 Where people can find you online?

Resources

• Homebrew/brew on GitHub
• Homebrew Official Website
• Mentioned Resources:
  • Open Source Maintainers Owe You Nothing - Mike McQuaid
  • Replacing Boxen - Mike McQuaid
  • Howembrew Analytics Install
  • Mike’s Brewfile on GitHub
• Related Projects:
  • Homebrew/homebrew-core on GitHub
  • Homebrew/homebrew-cask on GitHub
  • Homebrew/homebrew-bundle on GitHub
  • MikeMcQuaid/strap on GitHub
• @MikeMcQuaid on Twitter
• @MikeMcQuaid on GitHub
• @mike on Mastodon
• Mike’s Website

Show links

• Podcast Website
• The Developers’ Bakery on Spotify
• The Developers’ Bakery on Apple Podcasts
• The Developers’ Bakery on Google Podcasts
• @thebakerydev on Twitter
• @cortinico on Twitter