Homebrew maintainer here: I'm sorry that we don't meet your expectations.
Two things for your consideration:
1. It's uniquely visible among system package managers. When people have problems with a package in `apt` or `dnf`, they find a community or third-party repository for the package or bug the upstream directly. By contrast, Homebrew has always been visible on GitHub, does not require a special login to a bugtracker on some random domain, and thus receives direct community support volume that we need to address.
2. Homebrew is not an official system package manager. We operate at Apple's whim, which generally ranges between neutral disinterest and actively trying to remove parts of the macOS userspace that we rely on. Many of our changes over the last decade (installing our own Ruby, rolling back custom source options) can be directly traced back to changes that Apple imposes that produce disproportionately greater maintenance effort from us.
Point 2 here is huge. If Apple cared about open source or cross-platform developers, they would pay at least one full-time Homebrew developer and upgrades would be smooth. It speaks volumes that they are swimming in money and can't be bothered to make a token gesture.
> It speaks volumes that they are swimming in money and can't be bothered to make a token gesture.
I agree with a lot of the sentiment here, but I want to make one important correction: Apple has helped us. In particular, they gave us access to DTKs for the M1 and provided us with a liaison for the migration. We're very thankful for that help.
That being said, Apple is a massive company and they have their own development goals and velocity for macOS. They're not actively looking to break Homebrew, but they're also not going to halt everything for us.
Thanks for calling that out. This is totally unrelated to everything, but it's refreshing to see people giving credit -and thanks- to behemoth companies here on HN, with the proper nuance to also call out places they could have helped more (and the understanding of why they didn't). It's too easy, and common, to pile on the shortcomings. It struck me as a standout comment even in this generally polite community.
Apple swims in money and can't even be bothered to implement a hassle-free way of changing your Apple ID, especially if you own more than one device and even worse if you have 'Find My' enabled on them.
More than one person just last week got stuck in a loop where the system wants credentials for your old deactivated Apple ID. The solution isn't hard but the UX flow fucking sucks.
You must manually sign out of all devices using your old ID and sign in again. Except before you can do that you have to disable Find My. With the deactivated credentials again.
It shows the OLD email and wants the old password but you have to actually enter the NEW password in the dialogue so Find My deactivates and you can sign out.
Apple has always been pretty cavalier with breaking things and also full of NIH syndrome. It works for point-n-click users which don't care which hardware or software they are clicking as long as it's shiny and pointy and clicky. But if you're a developer that cares about the OS plumbing, let alone relies on parts of it, Apple is not going to do you any favors.
The thing is efforts like homebrew is basically the only thing that keeps Apple platforms as a viable developer's platform (without it it'd be intolerable, as Apple has zero official solutions for managing software not coming in pointy-clicky Appstore packaging) - and given that macs are still popular among many developers, it's a mystery why Apple corporate pays so little attention to it. It's like they sold a car without any tires and wouldn't even acknowledge the existence of tire manufacturers, let alone how vital they are for the actual users of the product.
> We operate at Apple's whim, which generally ranges between neutral disinterest and actively trying to remove parts of the macOS userspace that we rely on.
<sigh> I know you're not unique in this assessment or consequence, and that's truly a shame.
I think that #2 might not happen as often if Homebrew better conformed to a "UNIXy" philosophy. And to Apple's philosophy, because there is a sort of mentality to how they operate, even if you can't predict exactly what they'll do.
MacPorts hasn't had as many of these issues over the years, and I suspect that's largely down to mindset. Broadly speaking, MacPorts seems to have "first, do no harm" approach to almost everything. They don't install files in directories they didn't create, and they avoid depending on systems which are out of their control.
Two things for your consideration:
1. It's uniquely visible among system package managers. When people have problems with a package in `apt` or `dnf`, they find a community or third-party repository for the package or bug the upstream directly. By contrast, Homebrew has always been visible on GitHub, does not require a special login to a bugtracker on some random domain, and thus receives direct community support volume that we need to address.
2. Homebrew is not an official system package manager. We operate at Apple's whim, which generally ranges between neutral disinterest and actively trying to remove parts of the macOS userspace that we rely on. Many of our changes over the last decade (installing our own Ruby, rolling back custom source options) can be directly traced back to changes that Apple imposes that produce disproportionately greater maintenance effort from us.