RISC-V Foundation Trumpets Open-Source ISAs In Wake Of Meltdown, Spectre

The RISC-V Foundation says that no currently announced RISC-V CPU is vulnerable to Meltdown and Spectre and, in the wake of those bugs, stressed the importance of open-source development and a modern ISA in preventing vulnerabilities.

The RISC-V community has an historic opportunity to “do security right” from the get-go with the benefit of up-to-date knowledge. In particular, the open RISC-V ISA makes it possible for many different groups to experiment with alternative mitigation techniques and share results.

RISC-V’s BSD license means it can be freely used to build open or proprietary derivatives. Even if the ISA fails to safeguard against a particular vulnerability, the existence of many CPU designs should lower its impact. With so many affected by Meltdown alone, a future where the world’s computing is split between more ISAs is surely less RISC-y. (We won't apologize for that glorious pun, even if we'll see more RISC-V, not less.)