The problem that OpenRISC solves is an absence of free CPU IP. You do not consider an absence of free CPU IP to be a problem but others do consider it a problem and have created OpenRISC to solve that problem.

From the blog post linked in the article:

"the requirement for implementing a mutex is that an mutex operation is never allowed to be interrupted. Previously on OpenRISC this was done by making a syscall that disabled all interrupts as it's first instructions."

It's big-endian because little-endian *hasn't* won.

"Flextronics International and Jennic Limited manufactured the OpenRISC as part of an ASIC. Samsung use the OpenRISC 1000 in their DTV system-on-chips (SDP83 B-Series, SDP92 C-Series, SDP1001/SDP1002 D-Series, SDP1103/SDP1106 E-Series). Allwinner Technology are reported to use an OpenRISC core in their AR100 power controller, which forms part of the A31 ARM based SoC. ... TechEdSat, the first NASA OpenRISC architecture based Linux computer launched in July 2012, and was deployed in October 2012 to the International Space Station with hardware provided, built, and tested by ÅAC Microtec and ÅAC Microtec North America."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenRISC#Commercial_implementations

I find the title of this story troubling. I think some people have confused the word "radical" with the word "rational". If this manifesto is what is considered radical then we are in serious trouble.