+1 @Thibault

2015-10-01 9:51 GMT-04:00 Thibault Kruse via ros-users <
ros-users@lists.ros.org>:

> On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 7:23 PM, Bill Smart via ros-users
> <ros-users@lists.ros.org> wrote:
> > Also, I was thinking about the (perceived) autocratic behaviour of OSRF,
> and
> > about the origins of ROS. [...] Then Willow Garage came along,
> > asked a bunch of people in the community what they thought, and
> implemented
> > ROS. [...] Sometimes we have to stop talking and just do it, even if
> > it's not the optimal strategy.
>
> Hi Bill,
>
> A difference between then and now is that Willow Garage did
> not previously had any community that it could divide/hurt by creating ROS.
>
> Also Willow Garage, despite having tight business goals (10K robots
> in US households by 2015 IIRC), and despite having enough resources to
> sustain it's own software, made the effort to nurture an open-source
> community.
> OSRF, without the pressure of business goals, and desperately needing
> open-source contributions, instead ignores the open-source process (REPs),
> and
> plans to make a release that will divide the community into
> sub-communities.
>
> Willow Garage had strong and immediate pressure to provide a core that
> the perception / manipulation / navigation / supervision teams inside
> Willow
> Garage could easily use.
> OSRF, not having a robot plattform to produce or support, does not have
> this immediate feedback. OSRF could substitute the lack thereof by making
> small
> increments to ROS1 that the large ROS1 community can validate in a lot of
> real-world projects, but OSRF decided to rather validate ROS2 features with
> some hello-world packages.
>
> The behavior of OSRF does not only influence how quickly ROS2 will be
> ready (if ever) or what technical features it provides. The behavior of
> OSRF
> also influences how motivated anyone will feel to contribute to ROS.
> And what value has ROS without it's contributors?
>
> Nobody needs ROS2 to use DDS. There are open-source DDS libraries to use.
> Not much is gained by delivering a ROS2 that's just a paper-thin layer on
> top of DDS, but lacks the community momentum of ROS. That's why the
> behavior of OSRF and the strategy for ROS2 matter. Ideally ROS2 should
> not divide the community, and ROS2 should not make potential contributors
> feel like their opinion does not matter.
>
> regards,
>   Thibault
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