Hmm… can you elaborate? AFAIK MacPorts never touches outside /opt/local in it’s default configuration, and it requires sudo, so it doesn’t have the finicky permission problems that homebrew had on multiuser systems.
Regarding the permission problem: have never had any issue, but that's probably because I don't mix multiple users and developer tools.
I don’t even use Macports, but that’s just plain unfair.
Trying to judge the fairness of a technical aspect of a piece of software as a non-user seems rather pointless, don't you agree?
I was making an observation based on the fact that PowerPC Macs were discontinued in 2006 and homebrew was created in 2016.
So Macports (or other) could’ve changed things in the last 16yrs, which have been quite transformational for computers and software.
The difference in goals and tooling between the dpkg (Fink for macOS), ports (MacPorts for macOS) and brew systems seems to make all the remaining volunteers flow towards brew as the work required to fix ports is either harder, or getting the fix into MacPorts is harder. And sine Fink is dead, there is no dpkg-way to try out anymore.
I think RPM was never tried, and Nix is still an option but since you'll end up learning functional programming to use it, it won't get the hold the Nix-enjoyers seem to enjoy. Maybe Guix can inspire something, but I think the bar to entry with brew is really hard to beat.
The end result is broken and/or outdated ports, and even with the fixes post-macOS Forge the lack of content and port-fixes just makes it a non-starter when things like brew exist.