Fair enough, but there are two separate questions here:<p><pre><code>    1. Where do you want the software?
    2. Are elevated privileges required to put the software where you want?
</code></pre>
If you want to load all your software into $HOME/bin, then more power to you and no sudo is required. However, /usr/local serves an important and valid purpose (to provide packages system-wide), and it <i>should not</i> be available without elevated privileges. (By the way, 'not mixed in with  system software' is misleading, since OSX ships with an empty /usr/local. Nothing you put in /usr/local mixes with anything.)<p>Homebrew's official README suggests changing the ownership of /usr/local, and I think that's a terrible idea for multi-user machines. (Having said that, I suppose that many people have single-user machines, and in that case the issue is largely moot.)<p>Finally, a simple way to put software into your $HOME without ever needing sudo is available in most cases:<p><pre><code>    ./configure --prefix=$HOME</code></pre>