What was the original motivation of creating Homebrew?

[didip]

[mxcl]

I was working at last.fm and we made a cross-platform app that targeted Mac, Windows, Linux, Android, iPhone and Blackberry.

We worked on Mac because:

1. All the IDEs worked on Mac
2. It was UNIX

№2 excluded Windows and №1 excluded Linux.

Developing this involved a lot of juggling c-library dependencies and build-tools and the existing package managers on Mac were not flexible. So I started making my own.

My tools evolved beyond what we independently needed at last.fm, and I started incorporating ideas I'd had over the years until it became a full-fledged package manager.

I talk more about the genesis of Homebrew in my brew create talk.