[ros-users] multi-master support for Fuerte

[Jeff Rousseau <jrousseau@aptima.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ros-users-bounces at code.ros.org [mailto:ros-users-
> bounces at code.ros.org] On Behalf Of I Heart Robotics
> Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2011 1:35 PM
> To: User discussions
> Subject: Re: [ros-users] multi-master support for Fuerte
> 
> On Fri, 2011-09-09 at 02:09 +0900, Daniel Stonier wrote:
> > I got started from that one - thanks for the push in the right
> > direction. I was going to contact you about it, but here is as good a
> > chance as any :)
> >
> >
> > I ended up pushing a little further and in some different directions
> > though:
> >
> >
> >       * Permit any ros program to publish services of any type, not
> >         just the _ros-master._tcp.

We should think carefully about what level in the system, either node or master, where "service discovery" takes place.  To me the logical place is at the master since everything in ROS is neatly namespaced and nodes generally do not operate in a vacuum, but rather work together to provide a set of common interfaces through named topics & services.  

Putting discovery in the node places the burden on that node to export all the data from the necessary topics/services to accomplish a useful task.  It seems more natural to extend the ability of the master to configure what set of topics/services it wants to expose to other masters and they in turn have the ability to choose what topics/services to connect to.

I'm probably misunderstanding what you meant by your above bullet point--I'm just thinking in the context of multi-robot services.  


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