> what I meant to say is that MIPS ISA is open and could be used instead. There's nothing special about RISC-V. It is well documented that the researchers at B

> what I meant to say is that MIPS ISA is open and could be used instead. There's nothing special about RISC-V. It is well documented that the researchers at Berkeley who invented RISC-V wanted to use the MIPS ISA but were told they would have to pay several million dollars for the right, wouldn't even get RTL for a CPU core for that, and would not be allowed to publish anything they implemented themselves. So, no, people "can't just use the MIPS ISA". With RISC-V you don't have to ask anyone's permission, and don't have to pay anyone anything unless THEY developed a core and you choose to license it from them rather than develop your own or use a free one. There do happen to be some technical advantages to RISC-V, but they are by far outshadowed by the the freedom advantage.