With respect to being able to extend rosdep, that is definitely a
possibility.  Right now it is abstracted based on the detected OS however it
can be overridden by using environment variables to set the OS.  If you
define your own OS there is an abstracted interface which rosdep uses,
through which the arguments from rosdep.yaml are passed.  From which you
create a script to run.  Right now everything is assumed to be a bash
script, but there are thoughts of extending it to python for better cross
platform support.

Tully


> Long term, along the same lines as you've mentioned, I'd really like to
> connect ros(dep) to leverage one of the system builders. I've got no
> inclination (or time!) to replicate all the work currently done by others.
> Recycle/reuse... Until now, I've used crossdev, which I think's fantastic
> and alot simpler than OE for building a simple control platform, but it's
> constrained to gentoo. I don't have much chance teaching my korean
> colleagues gentoo and any generic solution we look for needs to be more
> general. I'm going to have to do a bit of learning though, or grab some folk
> who already know such a system well.
>
>

-- 
Tully Foote
Systems Engineer
Willow Garage, Inc.
tfoote@willowgarage.com
(650) 475-2827