The 'innovation' in RISC-V is not the ISA itself, which in many ways is a pretty standard conservative RISC, although one that by virtue of being later to the game has avoided many historical missteps like delay slots or register windows.
The 'innovation' is the licensing, or business, model. Anyone can design a RISC-V core and license it to others, or just give it away for free under an open source license on github, no need to negotiate with the ISA owner to buy some kind of architectural license.
The 'innovation' is the licensing, or business, model. Anyone can design a RISC-V core and license it to others, or just give it away for free under an open source license on github, no need to negotiate with the ISA owner to buy some kind of architectural license.