[ros-users] ROS 2.0 Strategy review

[Thibault Kruse]

On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 7:23 PM, Bill Smart via ros-users
<ros-users at lists.ros.org> wrote:
> However, we're operating under constraints: none of us are funded
> to improve the core of ROS (or, at least, no-one that I'm aware of). [...]
> OSRF has some funding, but it's limited, and they have to
> pick one way to proceed and follow it.

ROS2 is not an improvement of the ROS core, it is a new middleware
that is not very similar to ROS.

Note here that all the goals that OSRF presents are perfectly achievable
using a different strategy: ROS1.5. ROS1.5 means building nodes that talk
via the ROS1 protocol, but are built using ROS2 infrastructure and libraries.

That would take longer, that's all. And while it would mean that ROS2 core
would be ready later, it would IMO also mean that the general availability
of mature ROS2 packages would be earlier.

That way the switch to DDS would be more like what Brian promised:
"If we've done our job right, all that most users will notice is a
cleaner API and, depending on their use cases, better system
performance" [1]

That citation also allows applying the modus tollens [2] if most
users notice other things than mentioned.


[1] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/ros-sig-ng-ros/fQLysM_AEFY
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modus_tollens