If they were more about UNIX than freedom, that could make sense back then. These days, you miss out on loads on of open stuff and are very much a third class citizen. After Linux and Windows, as the platform has neither freedom or a large user base. Macports seams to regularly have talks about how they are shunned and ignored.
Yer it’s nonsense. The first device I switched from Ubuntu to Debian on was the SheevaPlug because Ubuntu dropped support for it. Debian still supports it now well over a decade later.