@foone publishing a spec: obviously good

having a second source: not something that will automatically happen? also you can still collude, lol, now *both* can profit

@foone let's pretend I am a company that wants to bring a device to market in the EU. it needs a custom cable. what do I do?

I ring a shop "Bob's Trusted Cable Second Source LLC", give them the spec, they put an item in their e-shop at the price of "how much it costs a guy in Netherlands to make exactly one of that cable, multiplied by 3"

this helps a little but very little

@whitequark @foone This is a great point

I think the requirement could more simply be that all cables should abide by open standards only (with some exceptions given to grandfathered but well known standards like HDMI)

Then furthermore, manufacturers should be disallowed from inventing new standards if their use-case is already well supported (no inventing an "open-source magsafe" just to sell more magsafe)

Tightening the process for what gets accepted as an open standard would then eliminate competitors designing differing "open" standard implementations that do the same thing but are incompatible with competitor products. Some centralised group would be needed. If a standard already exists for something, it should be modified to accommodate new use-cases, not remade separately

@MolarFox @foone that seems pretty harsh

is "weird one off cables" enough of a problem that we need to actively prevent people from improving existing standards at essentially any cost?

what happens if i buy a magsafe thunderbolt (totally noncompliant weird thing) off aliexpress? does this mean harsher surveillance of my purchases and more customs fees and more delays?