RISC-V isn't just the RISC-V standard. Its also a larger movement. What RISC-V critically changes is that open core designs can now openly be shared. This is something that wasn't the case before.

Universities and business can now cooperate much better better, people can work on a project in university and commercialize it far faster.

> You're not going to be able to download a new CPU like you can a new Linux kernel. An open source CPU core is useless without a factory to manufacture it.

A huge number of well designed FPGA cores can actually be download. Not so long ago good open FPGA cores weren't that common. Now there is a wealth of options. And you can get very high quality stuff like OpenTitan and use it yourself.

And designing your own CPU and letting it be manufactured more like a PCB isn't as crazy as it was. It used to cost many millions, now you can get it done for much less. 30 years ago hobbits designing their own boards and getting them within a few days wasn't a thing, now its common. Almost every hacker conference now has their own PCB per conference. This wasn't a thing not that long ago.

Google worked with SkyWater Technology to actually open source most of their process. You can use a fully open flow and order your own costume chips.

Contract manufacturing like that barley was a thing in the 80s, and now its the standard.

> A CPU is a very small part of a functional computing device. It's some magical thinking to assume just because a device was built on an open source CPU core that somehow the overall system will somehow be more open.

Nobody has this 'magical' thinking, that's a Straw man. Its about observing a longer term trend. Before RISC-V having even open-core wasn't much of a thing. And now that there are quality cores people can spend their time on other thing. Open implementation of different IPs are increasingly being designed. University research on new stuff being done by adding something to an open core.

Companies like Tenstorrent added a cool vector ISA to an Open Core. Chips Alliance is investing in tools like Verilator, and other needed things like TileLink interconnects.

Yes its not a guarantee that whoever uses RISC-V makes other things open, but at the very least it doesn't hurt. And the other side of the coin is that it makes it very EASY for people who want to make things open.

> GPUs will remain black boxes only accessible via their drivers' interface.

There are already early attempts at building RISC-V open GPUs, that you can interact with however you want. Sure your not gone get that from NVidea but that doesn't mean its not valuable.

> Peripheral controllers covered by patent pools or branding licenses won't cease to be covered even if the controllers are RISC-V.

Nobody is disagreeing with that, but its still the case that a lot of things can actually be open. A position that says 'its bad because its not absolute good' is dumb.

The point is that RISC-V existing and being successful is just one building block in the idea of information and technology being free and sharable, it moves cooperation and competition to a higher level.

It has lots of practical benefits that have already been demonstrated and RISC-V as a movement already had a huge impact on everything from the tooling to peripherals. Just look at RISC-V Foundation, Chip Alliance, CORE-V, Pulp Project and so on and so on.

> I don't understand what the fandom thinks they're going to get

A better world mostly, and many practical benefits along the way.