[ros-users] [Discourse.ros.org] [General] Discussion on ROS to ROS2 transition plan

[Matt Hansen]

All,
I'd like to start a discussion on the ROS to ROS2 transition plan. I know there are **many** users of ROS today, and that ROS2 is not yet fully featured, but I believe we need a plan to get the community to transition on to ROS2 as soon as possible. I believe that ROS2 can and will be better than ROS in the long run, and the sooner we get the community support in getting it ready the better. 

There's also this: [https://pythonclock.org/ ](https://pythonclock.org/)

Python 2.7 is going to EOL in 2020, and there are ROS dependencies on Python 2 that would need to be resolved in order to do a 2020 release on Ubuntu 20.04 and other OS's. That could be a lot of work, that in my opinion, would be better spent on improving ROS2 and porting more packages to ROS2.

Given that ROS Melodic was just released, and that OSRF is committed to supporting it for 5 years, until June of 2023, it seems we have 4.5 years to move to ROS2, even if another ROS release doesn't happen in 2020. 

I also realize that there is a planned 2019 release - 'Noetic'. Since that isn't on a Ubuntu LTS, I'm not sure how many in the community will move to that, but that could be discussed also. 

So, I'd like to know other users thoughts. Is 2023 enough time to move fully to ROS2? Do we need a LTS release in 2020? **My proposal is to forgo a ROS release in 2020 and put the effort in to ROS2 instead.**

We would need to work together as a community to improve ROS2 to the point that it is ready. I believe we can make that happen soon.





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