Homebrew (package management software)

Homebrew
Development status	Active
Written in	Ruby
Operating system	Mac OS X
Type	Package Management
License	BSD license
Website	brew.sh

Homebrew is a free/open source software package management system that simplifies the installation of software on the Mac OS X operating system. Originally written by Max Howell, the package manager has gained popularity in the Ruby on Rails community and earned praise for its extensibility.^[1]

Homebrew has made extensive use of GitHub in order to expand the support of several packages through user contributions. In 2012, Homebrew had the largest number of new contributors on GitHub.^[2] In 2013, Homebrew had both the largest number of contributors and issues closed of any project on GitHub.^[3]

Implementation

Homebrew is written in the Ruby programming language and targets the version of Ruby that comes installed with the Mac OS X operating system. It is often installed at /usr/local, existing as a git repository, allowing users to update Homebrew in the same way the latest code would be pulled down into a source repository. The package manager builds all software from source as opposed to providing binary downloads. The build procedure is described in a "formula," a Ruby script constructed with Homebrew's DSL for managing dependencies, downloading source files, and configuring and compiling software.