Interesting
But maybe doomed without clearer licencing and at least one open source CPU HW reference design as a starting point for CPU developers?
I can't see how simply allowing the instruction set to be freely used as "open source" (which licence?) makes a big difference. See 8080 vs Z80, 6800 vs 6502, various clones of 8088, 80486 etc that didn't exactly have a licence.
As article suggests, it smacks of PR and desperation.
Perhaps they need to "open source" ALL the MIPS IP they own to "save" the platform and encourage the development for their "AI" applications.
Even apart from RISC-V, the MIPS has lost out to ARM on almost every area and x86-64 on servers & workstations.
My coat has the Z80 instruction set booklet in the pocket.