This is either deliberate FUD or an accidental misconstruing of what they said.
I'm not a freenode staffer, but I was in the channel while this discussion was ongoing. What they did say was that:
1) the WEBIRC protocol, which mibbit pushes heavily, is fundamentally not trustable unless you know exactly what code is running
2) there are additional incentives for a commercial enterprise to potentially abuse any level of trust given to it
3) that this discussion was a tangent from the actual issue, which was that mibbit has not been, for over a year, open to discussion and working with freenode.
Their own client is not less capable of preventing abuse, because they can integrate it into their network better (which I take to mean things like actually presenting a guaranteed IP address and similar things), which means that they can then reliably block abusive users using the standard IRC techniques.
EFNet for example was more than happy to setup WEBIRC. So are hundreds of others. For Mibbit, it's the cleanest, least hassle solution. It needs no management. The networks own security handles everything. That is why it's recommended.
I'm really skeptical that abusing trust would be a good thing to do - if trust has been broken, networks can just ban you easily.
#3 I disagree with strongly. I have tried extremely hard to have an open dialog with freenode, to get details of any abuse, to get any email reports to abuse@mibbit.com or PM.
I'm working on new anti-abuse features for non-webirc networks that will hopefully help here.
Of course. My intent with that post was not to get into a discussion about why Freenode was right or wrong in making their decision - like I said, I'm not a staffer, and I have no access to the information they presumably are making their decisions on.
My intent with that post was to point out that Freenode's reasons were significantly more nuanced than you claimed in your parent post, and to address your response to one of them using arguments that they, again, outlined while you were in the channel.
I have no idea why you are being voted down. Your comments are useful and relevant. It's a disgrace that Mibbit is being given the benefit of the doubt here just because their founder is an HN member.
I'm not a freenode staffer, but I was in the channel while this discussion was ongoing. What they did say was that:
1) the WEBIRC protocol, which mibbit pushes heavily, is fundamentally not trustable unless you know exactly what code is running
2) there are additional incentives for a commercial enterprise to potentially abuse any level of trust given to it
3) that this discussion was a tangent from the actual issue, which was that mibbit has not been, for over a year, open to discussion and working with freenode.
Their own client is not less capable of preventing abuse, because they can integrate it into their network better (which I take to mean things like actually presenting a guaranteed IP address and similar things), which means that they can then reliably block abusive users using the standard IRC techniques.