An in-kernel JIT virtual machine whose bytecode is the RISC-V instruction set.
MERLIN-V is under active research and release preparation. Its source repositories, upstream contribution series, publications, research data, and reproducibility artifacts are not yet publicly available. Research and availability status.
MERLIN-V is a from-scratch design of an in-kernel virtual machine in the same territory as eBPF, with one decisive change: programs are encoded in a restricted profile of the RISC-V instruction set rather than in a bespoke bytecode. On a RISC-V host that removes translation entirely, since the bytecode already is the host's native instruction set: verify, relocate, flush the instruction cache and jump. On other hosts a translating JIT consumes stock RISC-V machine code instead of a private format.
MERLIN-V is developed to be released under the GPL-2.0-only for in-kernel components. UAPI headers and the user-space library are dual licensed GPL-2.0 and BSD-2-Clause. Everything Packet Five Networks publishes is open source and free for anyone to use.