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> Homebrew's very up to date, ... and has an incredible number of supported packages Package stats from Repology seems to contradict this claim: https://repol

> Homebrew's very up to date, ... and has an incredible number of supported packages Package stats from Repology seems to contradict this claim: https://repology.org/repositories/graphs https://repology.org/repositories/graphs It's not bad, but it's not the best either. Not even close. > including tons of closed-source stuff Homebrew doesn't ship any proprietary formulae at all. They have a clear policy against it: > We don’t like binary formulae > Our policy is that formulae in the core tap (homebrew/core) must be open-source with an Debian Free Software Guidelines license and either built from source or produce cross-platform binaries (e.g. Java, Mono). Binary-only formulae should go to homebrew/cask. > Additionally, homebrew/core formulae must also not depend on casks or any other proprietary software. > This includes automatic installation of casks at runtime. https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/master/docs/Acceptable-Formulae.md https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/master/docs/Acceptable...

moshmosh 5y ago
> Homebrew doesn't ship any proprietary formulae at all. They have a clear policy against it: And yet, I can install Sublime Text, Slack, and others through it out of the box. I just checked a couple more, Figma's there. Microsoft Office. Steam. You used to have to run a one-liner to enable casks (just one, not one for every damn vendor like with apt) but not anymore.
- moshmosh 5y ago
  Can't edit anymore, but just wanted to say: on review that post came off as snarkier than I intended it. I just mean that, whatever the policy on including closed-source in the primary Brew repo, casks are enabled by default and don't even require a different command or any set-up anymore. From a user's perspective they're 100% as available as other packages, as soon as you install homebrew. I think the only major difference is that they don't auto-update when you do a "brew upgrade"—you have to specify the cask package you want to upgrade. Which is a good policy since a lot of those programs have their own built-in updaters anyway.

moshmosh 5y ago

> Homebrew doesn't ship any proprietary formulae at all. They have a clear policy against it: And yet, I can install Sublime Text, Slack, and others through it out of the box. I just checked a couple more, Figma's there. Microsoft Office. Steam. You used to have to run a one-liner to enable casks (just one, not one for every damn vendor like with apt) but not anymore.

moshmosh 5y ago
Can't edit anymore, but just wanted to say: on review that post came off as snarkier than I intended it. I just mean that, whatever the policy on including closed-source in the primary Brew repo, casks are enabled by default and don't even require a different command or any set-up anymore. From a user's perspective they're 100% as available as other packages, as soon as you install homebrew. I think the only major difference is that they don't auto-update when you do a "brew upgrade"—you have to specify the cask package you want to upgrade. Which is a good policy since a lot of those programs have their own built-in updaters anyway.