OSRA TGC meeting minutes for April, 2025

OSRA Announcements and News
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Somewhat belatedly, the meeting minutes for the regular meeting of the Technical Governance Committee held on the 24th of April 2025, were approved in the May meeting and are now available in the official minutes repository. You can find the official minutes here, as well as a Markdown version below. The PDF version is the official version.

The next TGC meeting will take place in late June, 2025. The minutes of the May meeting should be approved in that meeting and posted publicly shortly thereafter.

TECHNICAL GOVERNANCE COMMITTEE

MEETING MINUTES

24 APR 2025 / 15:00-16:30 UTC / VIRTUAL VIA ZOOM

ATTENDEES

OSRF:

  • Geoff Biggs (TGC Chair)
  • Kat Scott (Developer Advocate)
  • Ryan Gariepy (OSRF Board Member)
  • Vanessa Yamzon Orsi (TGC Vice-Chair/Secretary)
  • VM (Vicky) Brasseur (OSRA Governance Advisor)
  • Yuki Nakagawa (OSRF Board Member)

OSRA Delegates/TGC Reps:

  • Alejandro Cordero (ROS PMC Rep, Honu Robotics)
  • Bence Magyar (ros-controls PMC Lead, Locus Robotics)
  • Carlos Aguero, (Gazebo Lead Proxy, Honu Robotics)
  • Clara Berendsen (Infrastructure PMC Rep, Ekumen)
  • Christian Henkel (Gold Rep, Bosch)
  • Daniel Gordon (Gold Rep, Huawei)
  • David Lu!! (Individual Rep, Metro Robots)
  • Hemal Shah (Platinum Rep, NVIDIA)
  • Michael Carroll (ROS PMC Interim Lead, Intrinsic)
  • Michael Grey (Open-RMF PMC Lead, Intrinsic)
  • Michel Hidalgo (Silver Rep, Ekumen)
  • Mirko Ferrati (Platinum Rep, Canonical)
  • Steve Peters (Gazebo PMC Rep, Intrinsic)
  • Steven! Ragnarok (Infrastructure PMC Lead, Intrinsic)
  • Yadu Vijay (Open-RMF PMC Rep, Intrinsic)
  • Zhaoyuan Cheng (Platinum Rep, Qualcomm)

OSRA Observers

  • Adam Dabrowski (Org Rep, Robotec.ai)
  • Nick Hehr (Org Rep, Viam)

AGENDA

Vanessa Orsi, TGC Vice-Chair, called the meeting to order at 15:05 on 24 Apr 2025 UTC.

Existing Business

  1. Confirmation of minutes of meeting TGC-20250327-Regular
    • Approved by consensus
  2. Project reports

    • Project update: ROS

      • Presented by Michael Carroll, PMC Lead
        • Key Formal Decisions Made:
          • Alejandro Cordero (Honu Robotics) was approved to be the new ROS PMC representative to the TGC.
          • Agreement on Noetic EOL date to be May 31, 2025, which aligns with Ubuntu Focal EOL. The last final sync freeze will be on May 16, and the last sync will be on May 29.
          • Voted to accept RMW Zenoh into REP-2005, and the ROS 2 repos as part of getting RMW Zenoh to Tier 1 status.
          • Voted to accept rosidl_rust from the Rust WG, which will allow Rust message generation as part of ROS 2.
          • Voted to remove ros (1) geometry from PMC management. Administrative correction only, as there are ROS 2 geometry packages.
        • Roadmap Updates:
          • rmw_zenoh
            • Quality declaration, REP 2005, and ros2.repos changes landed (Tier 1 status)
            • rmw_zenoh is being run as part of core CI and nightly jobs.
            • rmw_zenoh security configurations can be properly generated and used.
            • New features for isolating integration tests across multiple routers (thanks to Scott)
          • rmw_fastdds
            • Version bump complete to FastDDS 3.2
            • DDS topic keys feature landed.
          • rmw_connext
            • Version bump to Connext 7.3 and deprecation of connextmicro
          • Action introspection
            • Landed for Kilted Freeze
        • Kilted Release and Timeline - May 23 release date
          • Completed branching and we now have a Kilted ROS repos file.
          • Beta cutting and tutorial party launching upcoming
        • Community Input:
          • Discussions on merging or unifying our demos, tutorials, and examples repositories - proposal from Emerson Knapp of Polymath.
          • List of ROS 2 migration pain points - good resource from long-time community member Martin Peci. THE ROS PMC is working to make sure these are tracked and prioritized.
          • ROSCon talk proposal discussions
          • L-turtle roadmap planning
        • Ongoing Investigations

    • Project update: Gazebo

      • Presented by Carlos Aguero, PMC Member on behalf of the Project Leader
        • Roadmap Updates:
          • Migration from Qt5 to Qt6 complete
          • Zenoh in gz-transport - moving from design document to actual integration; non-trivial work from the Gazebo PMC and Infrastructure team to find all the CI dependencies
          • Command line: use binaries instead of shared libraries
        • Other updates:
          • Infrastructure
          • Removing version numbers from package names
            • Implemented in some of the libraries (gz-sim, gz-transport, gz-sensors, …)
            • We’re happy with the results so far and moving forward with all of the libraries
          • Contributor recruiting program
            • Very happy with the results so far. We got many issues tackled
            • We’re going to try proposing new features out of the critical path
          • GSoC
            • Entering the final phase of the review process
          • March Community meeting

    • Project update: Open-RMF

      • Presented by Michael Grey, PMC Lead

      • Discussion on results of open community meetings

    • Project update: ROS Controls

      • Presented by Bence Magyar, PMC Lead
        • GSoC proposal evaluations done, final downselection pending
        • Community uptake from gsoc alone & our github project board for contributing
        • Great use of org/.github repo for minimizing maintenance and improve the alignment of common files (license, readme components)
        • Repeatedly polling the community for new features, working on the wishlist and roadmap, e.g.
          • ONNX controllers
          • support more distributed setups, e.g. scope a closer micro-ros integration to support STM32, ESP32 boards
          • Planning new documentation section for developer setup
          • e.g. known issues for isaac ros dev container with gmock/gtest vendor packages
          • more industrial type interfaces

  • Rolled out the first version of joint limit enforcement, next step is making this available for controller from the framework

  • Adopt topic-based-ros2-control package and add 2 new committers -- this is a common boilerplate component for very low effort integration with isaacsim or mujoco for example (works only when the dynamics engine runtime is not too time critical wrt to control)

  • Feedback on adoption: big companies with large robot numbers & picks or other metrics, working with companies (undisclosed) on guidance to open source their ros2_control components

  • Project update: Infrastructure

    • Presented by Steven! Ragnarok, PMC Lead
      • repo.ros2.org migrated to 24.04, completing the ROS 2 build farm host migration to 24.04
        • Still outstanding: 20.04 containers are used in some build farm jobs. These will be transitioned after Kilted to avoid disruption
        • build.ros.org will be set on Ubuntu ESM until it is decommissioned after the Noetic EOL (Estimating July in order to give EOL time to settle completely)
        • build.osrfoundation.org migration now in preparation stage. Looking for a time to perform without colliding with Jetty release
        • Smaller hosts (ROS snapshots, ROS bootstrap) will also follow
        • Windows Server 2025 (Win 11 equivalent) host now available on ci.ros2.org
        • build.osrfoundation.org uptime
        • ros-archive-keyring / ros-repo packages
      • Ongoing discussions
        • Fedora packaging and build farm estimation
          • Discuss the infrastructure cost associated with adding Fedora packages to the ROS 2 build farm.
        • Automating Gazebo release process

  1. Other Existing Business Matters

    • Status of SIGs/TCs

      • Technical Committee on Enhancement Proposal Processes

        • Goal: Upgrade and improvements over REP
        • Chair: Geoff Biggs
        • Members: PMC Leads
        • Update:
          • The document writing is substantially complete; to be circulated among the PMCs for feedback.

      • SIG on Interoperability

        • Chair: Michael Grey
        • Update:
          • The scenarios concept introduced to the Open-RMF site editor was presented in this month’s meeting.

    • Discussion on communications and processes in the TGC

      • Geoff Biggs discussed the results of the communications survey circulated to the TGC.

      • Finalized methods:

        • Google groups

          • Email to be used for formal announcements and notices, including meeting and agenda communications

          • Share drive to be used for documents/archiving

        • Discourse

          • Categories will be created for various OSRA and TGC group discussions, membership in each group/category will depend on group makeup and discussion need.

        • The TGC Chair or Vice Chair will have authority to set up these categories and groups on Discourse.

      • Open Item: Which chat platform to use for instant messaging discussions. Discussions were held on viability and usability.

        • Action Item: The TGC Chair will follow up with the group on which chat platform to use.

New Business

  • a. Vice-Chair of the TGC - it was clarified that Vanessa Orsi, CEO of Open Robotics and TGC Secretary will act as Vice-Chair of TGC meetings and proceedings. In the event that neither Geoff nor Vanessa are available, they will delegate someone from the OSRF team to act as TGC chair.

    • Matter concluded

  • b. L-Turtle feature planning cycle - presented by Michael Carroll, PMC Lead

    • Development Cycle: May 23, 2025 - May 23, 2026, 5-year LTS

    • Discussed tentative supported platforms, planning process, input solicitation, roadmap commitments, work item allocation

    • Discussed prioritization, target/user audience, top-level planning from PMCs

      • Further discussions to come

  • c. Budget Requests - Vanessa Orsi presented an overview of the funding procedures for the OSRA, including startup and steady-state timelines, OSRF budget approval process, PMC requisition guidelines and procedures, and TGC deliberation and allocation process.

    • More discussion within the TGC is needed, to be taken asynchronously.
    • Action Item: A deep dive will be scheduled with the PMC leads to discuss the funding requisition templates and details further.

Other Items

  • Discussion on steps to increase community contributions
    • Success of targeted asks and promotions currently in place. PMCs have all seen an uptick in contributions from more community members.
    • Tracking/metrics

Adjournment - Vanessa Orsi adjourned the meeting at 23:33 UTC.

ACTION ITEMS

  1. The meeting minutes will be circulated to the TGC for review and approval before the next meeting by the TGC Chair.

  2. The TGC Chair will set up the Discourse threads for asynchronous communications.

  3. The OSRF CEO will set up a meeting with the PMC Leads to discuss the OSRA funding requisition procedures further.

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