Comment by rwmj
7 years ago
It's also about friction. You can download the RISC-V design straight off github (https://github.com/freechipsproject/rocket-chip) and start using it immediately. You don't have to phone up ARM or bring in lawyers to negotiate a license.
At least ARM smartened up on that one with the Cortex M0 and M3 DesignStart license, which requires no up front fee and you can just download the code for evaluation.
Probably still a good idea to have a lawyer read things over...