<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Andrew,<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">MacPorts provides pre-built packages for more macOS versions than Homebrew.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">However, MacPorts is very careful not to provide packages where the upstream license prohibits us from doing so.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Other pre-built packages are not provided if they depend on said packages to be build by our buildbots.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Installing on my Mac using MacPorts is much faster than on my servers under FreeBSD where everything literally has to be build locally, as pre-built packages may be up three months out of date.<br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jan 26, 2021, at 9:40 AM, Andrew Janke <<a href="mailto:floss@apjanke.net" class="">floss@apjanke.net</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class="">
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 1/26/21 10:12 AM, Christopher
Nielsen wrote:<br class="">
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<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:B7716A20-87EE-486E-BB3B-3C2C72C29E16@rochester.rr.com" class="">
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<blockquote type="cite" class=""><i class=""><font class="">Ken Cunningham wrote:<br class="">
</font></i><br class="">
homebrew is in shambles.<br class="">
<br class="">
their long-touted "no-sudo" and "no PATH" advantage from
installing into /usr/local has been eliminated by Apple as the
horrible security threat it always was. They have to retool into
/opt/homebrew and make 10,000 builds respect the build args now.<br class="">
<br class="">
They stripped out all their universal handling code a few years
ago, can't put it back, and so can't do the critical universal
builds any more. They tell everyone universal is wasteful, lipo
things manually, and run the x86_64 homebrew on Apple Silicon.<br class="">
<br class="">
So MacPorts, which works great from 10.4 PPC to 11.x arm64, is
the place to be.</blockquote>
<br class="">
<div class="">Personnally, I’ve never actually tried HomeBrew, as
I didn’t want anything installed into core OS areas. And after
choosing MacPorts years ago - 10+ at this point? - I’ve always
been very happy with the experience. Enough so that I’m finally
giving back, as a contributor!</div>
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<div class="">One advantage that HomeBrew does have, though, is
cachet: There are so many times when articles - or even
organizations, such as Google - simply recommend using HomeBrew…
with no mention of MacPorts.</div>
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<div class="">So, my feeling is that we need to up our public
relations game. Do we have an active social media presence, for
example? (Twitter in particular?)</div>
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</div>
<div class="">Of note, while I’m not an expert in social media
relations, I’d happily volunteer to help with it.</div>
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<div class="">Thoughts?</div>
</blockquote>
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Hi! Long-time user of both Homebrew and MacPorts here; former
Homebrew maintainer.<br class="">
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It's definitely a PR issue; Homebrew is winning on that front.<br class="">
<br class="">
IMHO, the other thing is that Homebrew is <i class="">fun</i> to use and
accessible to less-technical users. Friendlier command output,
low-jargon documentation, sense of humor, fun emojis. MacPorts feels
like more of a "pro" thing and serious sysadmin tool, and its
command output can be kind of technical and intimidating. I think
the Homebrew approach is attractive to a lot of general Mac users,
especially those approaching a package manager for the first time.<br class="">
<br class="">
Another big thing is that Homebrew ships binaries for everything, so
you can do a full Homebrew install of a big toolchain in just a few
minutes, where it might take hours to compile. MacPorts still builds
everything from source, right?<br class="">
<br class="">
Those are the reasons I always recommend Homebrew to new Mac package
manager users, even though I think both are good tools.<br class="">
<br class="">
Cheers,<br class="">
Andrew
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