[ros-release] p2os Maintenance status

Thu May 29 16:54:15 UTC 2014

Background:
The existing p2os repository is https://github.com/allenh1/p2os
The issue in question about transferring ownership is 
https://github.com/allenh1/p2os/issues/14

In general, if a ROS package is missing functionality or has bugs, you 
should file a bug report, to let the maintainer know that there is a 
problem. If you have fixes for a particular bug or additional features, 
you should submit them as a pull request.

Looking at the issue history for the p2os driver, I see that the level 
of support is actually quite good: there are no open bug reports, no 
open pull requests, and there has been a new release fairly quickly 
after major issues were addressed.

Aris: I suggest you fork the github repository, and submit your fixes as 
pull requests. If you'd like the maintainer to make a release of the 
p2os driver into Hydro or Indigo, open an issue requesting a release, 
and see what the response is.

Regards,
-Austin

On 05/29/2014 07:37 AM, Gert Kanter wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I, for one, am in favor of taking over maintainership. If Hunter Allen 
> is not motivated (or too busy etc) maintaining the package (already 
> two ROS releases!), then in the interest of the community, a willing 
> and active new maintainer should be able to pick up the slack. This 
> way the original contributors of the p2os can still be (more 
> prominently) credited for their previous contributions, especially if 
> you have originally forked the improved p2os from the old p2os. I also 
> agree that yet another package that is a successor of a unmaintained 
> package just adds confusion for the community (and obscures the 
> actively maintained package from new ROS users).
>
> It would be best if Hunter would approve of this action, of course.
>
> Disclaimer: I am working on a robot with the Pioneer mobile platform 
> with p2os and I am very interested in the mentioned new developments 
> in your private repository.
>
>
> Just my two cents,
> Gert Kanter
>
>
> 2014-05-29 16:19 GMT+03:00 Aris Synodinos <asynodin at mech.upatras.gr 
> <mailto:asynodin at mech.upatras.gr>>:
>
>     Hi,
>
>     I have just recently sent the following(cited) email about the
>     maintenance status of p2os, but since I was not a member of the
>     list, the email has not been made public. I am therefore
>     forwarding the email again, hoping that you will not receive it
>     twice. Just yesterday the maintainer of p2os pushed a new commit
>     to the p2os package, which is however mostly unmaintained and old
>     (no rqt - no ros_control - no simulation etc). I have contacted
>     the ros-sig-pioneer mailing list as you can see in the previous
>     email and we want to not mix things up for the community.
>
>     Currently there are two drivers for pioneer robots, rosaria and
>     p2os. Rosaria is actively maintained by the members of
>     ros-sig-pioneer and uses libaria to communicate with the robots.
>     P2os however, which dates back to the stage driver, has been left
>     without proper ros support for a long time, with no major upgrade
>     ever since electric. Hunter Allen used a part of Dereck
>     Wonnacott's work ( https://github.com/dawonn/ros-p2os-driver )
>      and ported p2os to groovy, using bloom for releasing the code
>     with debs.
>
>     The problem is that H. Allen is not updating the driver (very
>     little support) and due to the fact that he has released the
>     driver with the p2os package name, no one else can take
>     ownership/maintainership without causing unnecessary confusion to
>     the community. The result is very poor support for p2os, (until
>     yesterday there were no install targets for p2os, so the deb
>     packages were empty) and outdated support (groovy). I have tried
>     contacting H. Allen about stepping up to the job, but he closed
>     the issue without responding.
>
>     What is the proper way to proceed? Is it preferable to release a
>     new package under a different name? I will upload my code publicly
>     on github as soon as this is resolved, under the same (p2os) or a
>     different name if that is requested. Currently, my code is in a
>     private bitbucket repository.
>
>     Regards,
>     Aris
>
>
>     On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 10:30 AM, Aris Synodinos
>     <asynodin at mech.upatras.gr <mailto:asynodin at mech.upatras.gr>> wrote:
>
>         After contacting the ros-sig-pioneer mailing list, and since
>         the previous maintainer is unfortunately not responding and
>         has stopped maintaining the p2os package, I am willing to step
>         up and claim maintainership of the package.
>
>         I have fixed the issues that exist for groovy (no install
>         directives in cmake making the debian package unusable), added
>         features in hydro (moveit integration, rqt_dashboard etc) and
>         am willing to continue maintaining it for future versions
>         (indigo etc).
>
>         Please inform me how to proceed for this to happen. Currently
>         I have published all my work in a private repo in bitbucket so
>         as not to cause confusion to the community, but of course I
>         will publish this in github when this is desirable.
>
>         Here is the issue I created for the maintainership status in
>         github:
>         https://github.com/allenh1/p2os/issues/14
>
>         Here is the mail in the ros-sig-pioneer mailing list:
>         https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/ros-sig-pioneer/GVe3IQUn7cU
>         <https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#%21topic/ros-sig-pioneer/GVe3IQUn7cU>
>
>         -- 
>         Aris Synodinos
>         PhD Student
>         Robotics Grouphttps://github.com/dawonn/ros-p2os-driver
>         Mechanical and Aeronautics Engineering Department
>         Tel. +30-2610-996248 <tel:%2B30-2610-996248>
>         e-mail: asynodin at mech.upatras.gr <mailto:asynodin at mech.upatras.gr>
>         Web: http://robotics.mech.upatras.gr/
>
>
>
>
>     -- 
>     Aris Synodinos
>     PhD Student
>     Robotics Group
>     Mechanical and Aeronautics Engineering Department
>     Tel. +30-2610-996248 <tel:%2B30-2610-996248>
>     e-mail: asynodin at mech.upatras.gr <mailto:asynodin at mech.upatras.gr>
>     Web: http://robotics.mech.upatras.gr/
>
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