I really doubt whether this will live up to the lofty promises. Open software is really something very different from open chip architecture. We're still not a

I really doubt whether this will live up to the lofty promises. Open software is really something very different from open chip architecture. We're still not able to actually verify that what we get does not contain any backdoors. Unless we have an electron microscope in our basement. Either way we will need a trusted manufacturing party that doesn't incorporate any backdoors like intel's ME. AMD and ARM CPUs have the same thing. I"m sure RISC-V will get the same due to pressure from governments, content providers that want DRM etc. The main target community seems to be the Chinese manufacturers as they want to have more independence from sanctions. I'd love to be wrong and for RISC-V sprout an entire ecosystem of really 'free as in speech' hardware under the user's control but I don't see it happening.