I expect that some RISC-V implementations will always need patches, but as any ISA matures it tends to get standardized and the implementations start to look more and more similar. In the case of RISC-V, the costs for both the implementer and the customer will get better as it becomes more standardized, which will help to push both more implementation and more adoption. This in turn drives more standardization… it’s a feedback loop. Then, you will always have your one-off oddities. These are important. Sometimes, semi-custom platforms are for experimentation, and sometimes they’re just super niche use-cases. RISC-V is great in these situations due to zero license fees.
It is not necessarily zero license fee because you can theoretically spun-off RISC-V designs to your own proprietary ISA. Some Chinese scientists did a case study on this possibility by creating a new ISA called RISC-X [1], but they are not progressing to do any harm right now.
