[ros-users] ROS Development Survey

Thu Sep 25 08:57:34 UTC 2014

Will the survey results be published somewhere?

cheers,
mark
--

On 24 September 2014 20:12, Brian Gerkey <gerkey at osrfoundation.org> wrote:

> To add OSRF's perspective directly:
>
> Indeed, we coordinated with Clearpath on this survey, with the
> motivation to figure out what demand there is in the community for
> paid support services.  It's something that we've heard about
> anecdotally over the years, but on which we don't yet have enough data
> for somebody to make an informed business decision.  If there enough
> demand, we want companies (among them Clearpath) to offer those
> support services to foster further ROS adoption, to provide a better
> experience for users, and, ideally, to provide some amount of
> financial support to OSRF for our core development efforts.
>
> We have no intention of changing OSRF into a service/support
> organization; that's an incredibly useful role for a company to play,
> but it's not what we do.  We spend our time doing the core development
> that makes ROS and Gazebo fundamentally better.  But to do that, we of
> course need to pay salaries.
>
> To date, we've been funded primarily by generous grants and contracts
> from US government agencies.  While we don't anticipate any near-term
> change in that source of support, we are working to diversify our
> funding portfolio.  Part of our belief in creating OSRF was that, as
> more companies come to rely on the tools that we create, we'll gain
> financial support from industry.  That is beginning to happen, as you
> can see from the expanding list of OSRF sponsors:
> http://www.osrfoundation.org/sponsors (and ROSCon sponsors:
> http://roscon.ros.org/2014/sponsors/).  The outlook is good, but we're
> still looking for more and broader support; hence our interest in
> exploring the possibility of paid support services.
>
> By the way, OSRF is a non-profit organization, granted tax-exempt
> status by the US government as a public charity (under IRS code
> 501(c)(3)).  We gratefully accept donations, from individuals and
> organizations.  If you'd like to directly support our work, please
> donate today:
>
> https://events.osrfoundation.org/
>
> brian.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 5:58 AM, Ryan Gariepy
> <rgariepy at clearpathrobotics.com> wrote:
> > Hi Daniele, all,
> >
> > In short, Clearpath shares your feelings and goals, and I believe the
> OSRF
> > does as well.
> >
> > In long:
> >
> > In our discussions with OSRF leading up to this survey, our primary
> > consideration was maintaining and expanding the current ROS community and
> > infrastructure much as it is today. The best way to do that is to plan
> for
> > years in advance and assume that the various grants and contracts which
> > allowed the OSRF to start up in a sustainable way will at some point
> stop.
> >
> > Thus, it follows that OSRF must find sources of revenue elsewhere, or
> else
> > become a contract software shop itself. Working on contracts is much
> less in
> > service of the OSRF's mission than begin able to work on fully
> > community-directed projects.
> >
> > In discussions both at OSRF and Clearpath, we came to the conclusion that
> > the majority of the major institutions and businesses which are receiving
> > value from ROS will nonetheless be unable to simply donate to the OSRF.
> > Therefore, we need to provide a way where funding the OSRF makes business
> > sense. Support and other similar efforts are beneficial in particular
> > because though support efforts may be for specific clients at first, the
> > improved documentation, knowledge base, and bugfixes can benefit the
> entire
> > community.
> >
> > And, to address another question which will likely be going through a few
> > people's minds: Clearpath is taking these first steps because we too
> heavily
> > rely on ROS, we understand the needs of the community, and we already
> have
> > the infrastructure to make this happen (since we already provide support
> for
> > hundreds of ROS users). Though we will no doubt make a profit on this
> > endeavour, that is not our primary goal. Our own long term plans depend
> on
> > ROS & the ROS community continuing to grow in the way it already has,
> > therefore we must do what we can to make this possible.
> >
> > Most importantly, if we go forward with offering services like this
> > ourselves, we intend that a share of the profit goes to the OSRF to
> directly
> > support core development efforts. We believe we're the right team to
> provide
> > support to these large companies, but OSRF should continue to be the
> nucleus
> > of the ROS community. A general outline of that arrangement will be made
> > available to the ROS community if and when we take those next steps.
> >
> > I hope this helps.
> >
> > -Ryan
> > .
> >
> > On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 7:07 AM, Daniele Calisi <
> daniele.calisi at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> Dear Ryan,
> >> it is clear that Clearpath and OSRF wants to be paid in the near future,
> >> for their knowledge about ROS. It's fine for me, all work should be paid
> >> somehow. What is my concern, anyway, is that this would change the
> goals of
> >> ROS, that so far has been the first Open Source framework widely adopted
> >> used in the world.
> >>
> >> On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 7:37 PM, Ryan Gariepy
> >> <rgariepy at clearpathrobotics.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Hello ROS users!
> >>>
> >>> Clearpath Robotics, an early adopter of ROS, is working with the Open
> >>> Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF) to determine how the worldwide ROS
> >>> development community can best be supported. This may be via support
> >>> services, resources, or tools offered by the OSRF or community
> >>> members. Now is your opportunity to let us know what you need and how
> >>> Clearpath and OSRF can work together to best support you.
> >>> Please take a moment to complete this short survey:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> http://fluidsurveys.com/surveys/clearpathrobotics-B/ros-development-survey-final/
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>>
> >>> Ryan Gariepy | CTO | Clearpath Robotics, Inc.
> >>>
> >>> 1425 Strasburg Road, Unit 2A | Kitchener, Ontario | N2R 1H2 Canada
> >>> T:  +1 (800) 301-3863 x802 | F: +1 (888) 374-0091 | E:
> >>> rgariepy at clearpathrobotics.com | W: www.clearpathrobotics.com
> >>>
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> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Daniele "MadMage" Calisi
> >> "Your limit is always a bit beyond"
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >>
> >
> >
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-- 
"In the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded."
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