Protobuf install on mac fails with 'could not symlink'

Question

Trying to install protobuf on mac via:

brew install protobuf

Results in:

Error: The `brew link` step did not complete successfully
The formula built, but is not symlinked into /usr/local
Could not symlink include/google
/usr/local/include is not writable.

Suggestion:

You can try again using:
  brew link protobuf

Results in:

Error: Could not symlink include/google
/usr/local/include is not writable.

Tried:

brew update
brew uninstall protobuf... brew install protobuf
sudo brew... of course won't work (cowards...)

Any idea?

Answer 1

Looks like this solves it:

sudo chown -R `whoami` /usr/local

and then:

brew link --overwrite protobuf

Taken from here:

http://developpeers.com/blogs/fix-for-homebrew-permission-denied-issues