[bsder]

> Raspberry Pi proved there is demand for this sort of thing.

RPi proved nothing of the sort. You are still relying on a commercial vendor to provide the VLSI chips. And, I assure you, they didn't make that chip for the RPi.

Open chips for phones? I couldn't stop laughing. Phones are all about minimizing power consumption. That requires that you be on nearly the newest fab technology.

If OpenRISC/LowRISC/<foo>RISC were serious, they've got a really good market to jam themselves into--Bluetooth Low Energy and WiFi chips. The margins on those chips have gotten so small that everybody is doing anything to avoid having to pay ARM money.

So, why aren't those chip vendors adopting the "open" stuff instead of hand-rolling their own?