[ros-users] REP 122, REP 123, and REP 124: changes to ROS for ROS Fuerte

[Ken Conley]

The following three REPs have been posted.  I am posting them as a set
as they all originate from changes introduced by REP 122.

REP 122  Filesystem Hierarchy Standard layout changes for ROS
http://ros.org/reps/rep-0122.html

REP 123  ROS_ETC_DIR, ROS_DISTRO environment variables and ROS_ROOT changes
http://ros.org/reps/rep-0123.html

REP 124  Changes to roslaunch and rosrun for REP 122 and catkin build system
http://ros.org/reps/rep-0124.html

Voting is separate for these REPs, though REP 123 and 124 are dependent on 122.

Obviously, REP 122 is a bit interesting as the changes it proposes are
already deployed in the ROS Fuerte alpha builds.  While this is not
desirable, it was a case where it was not possible to fully understand
the breadth of the necessary changes without attempting to actually
make the changes.  The changes introduced by the REP were made
critical by the need to undo messy integration with standalone
libraries, like OpenCV and PCL, as well as layout the groundwork for
future integration efforts with standalone libraries, like Octomap,
OMPL, SBPL, and Gazebo.

In our efforts to create the ROS Fuerte alpha builds, we've generally
found minimal impact in pre-existing code related to the changes
introduced above [1].  The heaviest impact has been within the ROS
toolchain itself, e.g. with tools like rosinstall, which have more
specific assumptions about the install layout. These tools are being
updated to be compatible.

Changes are possible for all of these REPs, though changes may have to
go in ROS Groovy depending on their scope.

There is also a yet-to-be-written REP (and implementation) for rosdep,
which will make further improvements to the overall system
integration.

 - Ken

[1]: http://ros.org/wiki/fuerte/Migration