Yes, we believe it is. That Open Robotics got acquired by Intrinsic represents a fantastic opportunity for industry, for startups like us, for academia and for research labs. This article touches on why we believe this can be great for the robotics industry.
TL;DR:
With this action, Intrinsic (Alphabet, Google) recognizes that ROS will play an important role in the growing robotics market. This is a good thing for the ROS community and for the robotics industry in general. We believe it will help ROS to grow and mature addressing some of the outstanding issues such as documentation, ease-of-use, security or leveraging modern AI.
Context, why should you care about our opinion?
Acceleration Robotics is an active member of the ROS community that builds upon a decade of experiences building robotic companies using ROS. We pack a team of roboticists and hardware engineers that include acknowledged world experts in ROS. We also lead the ROS 2 Hardware Acceleration Working Group that drives the creation, maintenance and testing of hardware acceleration for ROS 2 and Gazebo with exciting projects like the Robotics MCU, the Robotics Processing Unit (RPU) or RobotPerf (see all subprojects of the working group). Acceleration Robotics is also very actively involved consulting for big customers around hardware accelerating ROS 2 and Gazebo. You could say we are building a robotics company heavily based on ROS 2 and Gazebo.
Why do we think this is happening?
Because despite its potential, ROS was becoming unmanageable. Over the last few years we've observed how ROS and specially ROS 2 has become increasingly fragmented. We track at least 5 proprietary robotic operating systems (which is what ROS and ROS 2 are) forked out of ROS 2. People's using ROS and many are seeking consulting around ROS, but very few are contributing back constructively. Open Robotics team was focused on customer projects and maintenance but very few there (over the last few years and that we can track) have been involved in pushing the boundaries of what ROS can do. Big companies and new startups are re-inventing the wheel. They use and complain, eventually forking it, claiming to address new feature/problem A, B or C. This won't scale. This is a problem for the ROS community and for the robotics industry in general. ROS is a critical piece of the robotics puzzle and it needs to be maintained and improved. The ROS community has proven that it is not enough to do this alone. It needs help from industry. More than what's provided by the current TSC and the ROS 2 Working Groups.
Big companies and new startups are re-inventing the wheel. They use and complain, eventually forking it, claiming to address new feature/problem
A,BorC. This won't scale.
We believe Open Robotics turned to industry to seek funding a few years ago to address this problem. Our understanding is that most of this funding came, but "to use ROS", not so much to improve it. Very few groups that we know have been willing to pay to improve ROS because they use it. One clear evidence is the lack of commitment for documentation from industry.
With this move, we hope and trust the ROS team will have more resources to focus on improving ROS and ROS 2.
Why is this a good thing?
Because it can address the problems existing in ROS. Some of the outstanding issues of ROS include 1) documentation, 2) ease-of-use, 3) (cyber)security or 4) leveraging modern Artificial Intelligence techniques.
Because it can address the problems existing in ROS. Some of the outstanding issues of ROS include
1)documentation,2)ease-of-use,3)(cyber)security or4)leveraging modern Artificial Intelligence techniques.
ROS was born to unify robotics efforts. The ongoing fragmentation of ROS is a threat to the robotics industry overall and can slow down progress. The lack of progress seen in the last few years is a clear indication of this. We hope this acquisition will help ROS to grow and mature.
Intrinsic might be able to help with these issues. We hope they will and Morgan, Brian and the rest of the crowd are indeed the best ones we can think of. We are excited to see what they can do.
What's our take as a startup?
Our past efforts with ROS go back more than a decade ago. We've contributed to ROS and ROS 2 heavily, across various of the stacks in the robotics pipeline and while building robotic companies. This last bit is important. We know the pain of addressing real problems with robots, the technical complexity associated and how hard is to match a) business interests and b) community interests while c) fundraising from (public or) private sources and d) growing and leading teams. Building companies in such an immature field like robotics is really hard, in general. Solving problems out there with ROS is very different from working on a research project. The same as leading a group is different from working for someone else, leading a technology revolution is very different from using it. Open Robotics has really done great and we believe they might be able to continue doing great inside of Intrinsic for the robotics industry.
The same as leading a group is different from working for someone else, leading a technology revolution is very different from using it. Open Robotics has really done great and we believe they might be able to continue doing great inside of Intrinsic for the robotics industry.
We do recognize Google is unfortunately notorious for launching new products and services, only to drop them a few years later. Fortunately, this isn't Google, it's Intrinsic and we believe Open Robotics has taken the right measures to de-risk things with their actions. OSRF is in good hands and ROS 2 is now more relevant than ever.
Acceleration Robotics is happy for the Open Robotics team and wishes them the best in their new adventure at Intrinsic. As a startup, we believe this presents a very exciting opportunity ahead. We will continue leading hardware acceleration efforts in the robotics and ROS communities while serving our customers to leverage hardware acceleration. Our goal's the same, make robots faster. Speed up robot's operations with accelerators.
This changes nothing. It's just more exciting!