I’d like to echo that point: the underlying package code is open, as is the build farm code. There are multiple organizations that run their own copies of the build farm now, usually to produce custom distros for internal use. So if Open Robotics were to stop doing ROS 1 releases, anyone else can pick it up. You can even do it now. I’m of course not encouraging the creation of forks, which I think that most of us will agree would be bad, but it’s not crazy to have a backup plan if you’re inclined to worry that we’ll abruptly walk away.
Of course, as you also point out, you probably don’t have funding to support that kind of effort. But then, neither do we! Amazon is now generously funding our use of AWS resources to host our build farms, but nobody is paying us to spend time releasing or even maintaining ROS 1. For reference, from our internal staffing plans I estimate that preparing and releasing a ROS 1 distro requires 8-9 person-months of effort from our team. Since leaving Willow Garage in 2012, we’ve received approximately $0 directed at maintenance or improvement of ROS 1. And even if we had such funding, we’d still be limited by the number of people on our team. If you’re currently trying to hire software engineers, especially in the bay area, you can likely sympathize.
I’m not complaining. We’ve made it work because we believe that it’s important. But the trade-offs laid out by @mkhansen and @wdsmart are real: time that we spend on ROS 1 is time that that we’re not spending on ROS 2, thereby (further) delaying the development of the latter. And the risk in that delay is also real: at some point organizations that eagerly want ROS 2 because ROS 1 doesn’t meet their needs will decide to stop waiting and instead build or buy something else, likely a proprietary solution.