Thanks! In that case, they seemed to have a good point: if it was an open source CPU, it seems like security might be an issue.

One way to do it: ship security updates using the same technique as intel, and don't release the source code for the fix until much later. I think I remember an open source project doing something similar. But of course, it seems pretty hard to manage that complexity: what if the fix introduces code changes that future commits depend on?

Interesting problem...

I'm by no means an expert, but open design and verification of secure enclaves seems quite feasible -- keys would differ between different chip makers, I imagine. Folks could write patches, but perhaps not sign them for hardware they own. Though I'd expect most maintainers to work with the community to get bugs fixed.