[ros-users] The future of ROS 2.0 protocol changes

[Ingo Lütkebohle]

First of all, thanks to Brian for confirming again that the bridge/compat
to 1.0 still holds. I know from experience that such things can turn out
much harder than expected, and it is no small commitment on the OSRF's
behalf to pledge that.

Regarding the other half of the discussion, while I sympathize with Chad's
sentiments, and agree on many points, it appears to me that the ROS 2.0
*core* is  largely an endeavour of the OSRF, similarly to how the ROS 1.0
core was largely an endeavour of Willow Garage. I mean this in the sense
that, while it is Open Source, they bear the brunt of the development, and
the rest here are largely *users*. Of couse "use" in this case means
development of software based on it. This other software makes up much of
what is ROS, so we probably don't like to think of us as regular users, but
in relation to the core, I think we mostly are (the exact history
unfortunately appears to be lost in the move to github, so please correct
me if I'm wrong).

I'm mentioning this to make a case that people who are interested enough
should not find it too much of a burden to join a special interest group,
if that makes the whole job easier for the "core" developers. The split
between "users" and "developers" is common for many projects, and there are
usually quite a few people on the "developers" list who aren't contributing
code but mostly other input. I'm personally a bit annoyed that the SIG is
on google groups instead of a regular mailing list, but well, I can live
with that ;-)

That said, I also think that OSRF would be well advised to *actively* pull
people into the SIG, and maybe not just those that speak up here, because
it could provide not just interesting input, but also the potential for
work sharing. Greater community involvement will certainly ease migration.
Also, otherwise, people might be scared away by the "special interest"
description.

cheers,
Ingo
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