On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 4:20 PM, Ken Conley <kwc@willowgarage.com> wrote:
> Our indexer just uses rosinstall, so that is one way of debugging from
> your end any potential setups.

rosinstall here (0.5.12) had no problem fetching the repository:

- git: {local-name: umd-ros-pkg, uri: 'git://ram.umd.edu/umd-ros-pkg-test.git', version: master} [git 1.7.0.4]

> submodules are still immature.  For example, they aren't available on
> pre-Lucid Ubuntu machines.

If ros.org could direct users to the subrepositories when they inquire about stacks or packages (wiki, roslocate, etc.), would that help to avoid added confusion? Something like the following (code attached):

repo.yaml:
name: umd-ros-pkg-test
packages:
 gps_common: {authors: Ken Tossell, brief: gps_common, license: BSD, stack: gps_umd,
   url: 'http://ros.org/wiki/gps_common', vcs_uri: 'git://ram.umd.edu/ros/gps_umd.git'}
 gpsd_client: {authors: 'Rob Thomson, Ken Tossell', brief: gpsd_client, license: BSD,
   stack: gps_umd, url: 'http://ros.org/wiki/gpsd_client', vcs_uri: 'git://ram.umd.edu/ros/gps_umd.git'}
 pkg_in_main_repo: {authors: '', brief: pkg_in_main_repo, license: BSD, stack: stack_in_main_repo,
   url: 'http://ros.org/wiki/pkg_in_main_repo', vcs_uri: 'git://ram.umd.edu/umd-ros-pkg-test.git'}
 some_imported_pkg: {authors: '', brief: some_imported_pkg, license: BSD, stack: test_ros,
   url: 'http://ros.org/wiki/some_imported_pkg', vcs_uri: 'git://ram.umd.edu/ros/test_ros'}
stacks:
 gps_umd:
   authors: Ken Tossell
   brief: gps_umd
   description: GPS messages and libraries
   license: BSD
   packages: [gpsd_client, gps_common]
   url: http://ros.org/wiki/gps_umd
   vcs_uri: git://ram.umd.edu/ros/gps_umd.git
 stack_in_main_repo:
   authors: Maintained by
   brief: stack_in_main_repo
   description: stack_in_main_repo
   license: BSD
   packages: [pkg_in_main_repo]
   url: http://ros.org/wiki/stack_in_main_repo
   vcs_uri: git://ram.umd.edu/umd-ros-pkg-test.git
 test_ros:
   authors: Maintained by
   brief: test_ros
   description: test_ros
   license: ''
   packages: [some_imported_pkg]
   url: http://ros.org/wiki/test_ros
   vcs_uri: git://ram.umd.edu/ros/test_ros
vcs: {type: git, uri: 'git://ram.umd.edu/umd-ros-pkg-test.git'}

[similar effect for megamanifest/megastack]

Then the git repositories that use submodules would probably need to move all of their stacks into submodules, so that users wouldn't have any need to install both sub_repo.git (for imported_stack) and main_repo.git (for stack_in_main_repo), ending up with two copies of imported_stack.

- Ken