I am pleased to announce rosinstall_generator!

The rosinstall_generator generates rosinstall files containing information about repositories with ROS packages/stacks.
It always points to released packages - either to the gbp repositories for wet packages or to the tarball of dry stacks from the SVN release repository.
(If you want to access the source repository of a package/stack you should use roslocate instead.)

It replaces the hosted web service at http://packages.ros.org/web/rosinstall/ which has been deprecated.
I have updated the from-source installation instructions at http://www.ros.org/wiki/groovy/Installation/Source to use this new tool instead of the web service.

You can find more information and examples on the ROS wiki page:
http://ros.org/wiki/rosinstall_generator

-- 
Dirk Thomas
ROS Development Team