From the link posted above:
Microsoft will host the Windows builds for ROS1 and shortly ROS2, as well as provide documentation, development and deployment solutions for Windows.
That’s nice to see Microsoft will hosting the some ROS build infrastructure, given if Microsoft wants to see ROS support for windows, they’ll need to help support the ROS community to do so.
About the Porting Status: Will we see Microsoft directly contributing back to existing ROS packages directly upstream, or will we see more of a support via fork , where ported packages are made windows specific? I ask this as many existing packages released often have some *nux assumptions, like launch files or code with default /dev
device for things like /video
webcams, /tty
for serial, /usb
for openni sensors, what /dev/nvidia*
GPU to use for a tensorflow node, your occasional hardcoded /
path delimiter, etc. At lease in ROS1 these assumptions are kind of numerous, and I’d like to know how this will be reconciled upstream?
Also curious; is there a large demand from current ROS1 users for windows support, or is it that Microsoft see’s a large untapped market share for window users who might like to use something like ROS1. If the later is the case, how is this expected to play into the ROS2 transition plan? E.g. is it sensible to introduce new ROS windows users to ROS1 if ROS2 will soon replace it? I’ve always thought the majority of core windows users as being corporate customers, where EOL support expectations are usually long in the tooth.
To be clear, I’m not dismissing the effort; on the contrary, the more that the ROS community grows the better. I just want to be sure new users will be given the support they’ll need, and that community resources are wisely allocated.
Another related articles I’ve seen: