Will documentation of core ROS2 functionality be higher on the priority list?
@JRTG
OSRF will set priorities for the development of ROS together with the community. OSRF does want quality-of-life things such as documentation to have a high priority. However, ultimately it is the community of contributors that will do the work and each contributor is free to decide what they want to work on.
Will there be more clear communication wrt which specific features are being worked on (short term / mid term / long term), and which are no longer a priority?
@JRTG
Both Gazebo and ROS publish roadmaps in their documentation. Although these are aspirational roadmaps, and depend on whether contributors come forward to actually do the work, the ROS roadmap in particular is produced by contributors (including the former OSRC). In the future, OSRF may be able to put in place a process that produces a more-frequently updated roadmap for each of its projects, but because the work is contributor-driven it is difficult to guarantee roadmap items will be implemented by a certain date or release.
How will OSRF be funded?
@JRTG
In addition to assets already held in reserve, OSRF also received proceeds from the sale of OSRC and OSRC-SG. Aside from this, OSRF has various sources of funding such as licensing, royalties, and grants to support its ongoing operations.
We also receive financial support from companies and individuals who are beneficiaries of OSRF’s projects. In the past, this has not been as significant a portion of our funding as we would have liked, so we would like to encourage the community to keep us in mind and donate when you can!
OSRF currently only has two full-time staff (a CEO and a CTO), as well as five board members. This does not seem suitable for doing a lot of work. How will development be done in the future?
@JRTG
With its for-profit subsidiaries, OSRC and OSRC-SG, OSRF tried to be the driving force in the development of ROS, Gazebo and Open-RMF. This worked well for ten years, but is reaching its limits as the ROS community grows, and users place increasingly stringent demands on software quality. One goal of this acquisition is to shift OSRF to a model that is closer to other open-source software foundations, where the Foundation is the central point of ownership and organisation, while actual development work is performed by interested contributors throughout the community, from large commercial users to individual hobbyists. OSRF also has outside contractors who maintain and improve the infrastructure, such as the build farm, that the projects depend on. Going forward, OSRF will examine the needs of the community, the contributions being made by the community, and its own resources to determine whether to expand its staff and in what areas to invest in additional staff. Even the Linux Foundation only employs one full-time developer: Linus himself.