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goodson _was_ mips, I assume they made it official mips at some point.

so the question is basically the opposite: why riscv when MIPS already existed and was being used by third parties?

Well, one of the designers of RISC-V was Dave Patterson, who was also the main force behind MIPS 25-ish years earlier. So it's meant to be an improvement, a 5th generation RISC architecture, not just an equal alternative with a different license.

I don't know much about the differences, but the system of standardized extensions is pretty cool and makes the same base architecture applicable to a wider range of applications.

http://www.riscvbook.com/

> why riscv when MIPS already existed

MIPS, POWER, and SPARC, AIUI - all open enough that you could make your own processor using them.

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