Robotics developers around the world have long turned to open source tools and libraries like ROS, Gazebo, and Open-RMF as they test and build robots of all kinds — and push to improve interoperability across the industry. As our Open Robotics team at Intrinsic has been working to support the community by advancing the development of these tools and libraries, today we’re also committing to a new initiative announced by the independent nonprofit Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF) to strengthen open source robotics governance.

‍

As one of several inaugural members of the Open Source Robotics Alliance (OSRA), Intrinsic will be coming together with other individuals and organizations deeply invested in building a more accessible and open robotics industry and facilitating a stronger ecosystem. While open source development is open to anybody, governance models play an essential role in establishing and maintaining a framework to enable its effectiveness and efficiency.

‍

Historically, ROS, Gazebo, Open-RMF, and the OSRF Infrastructure projects have been coordinated independently from one another. By introducing an organizational structure to engage the global robotics community across these projects and to facilitate a diverse representation of interests and perspectives in their development, the OSRF is hoping to promote a more sustainable ecosystem built around developing and using open-source software. We also believe these efforts will be a key part of unlocking industrial robotics for more businesses and developers.

‍

In the coming months, Intrinsic will be collaborating in regular meetings and throughout ongoing ROS, Gazebo, Open-RMF, and infrastructure projects alongside other inaugural members — NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Apex, Zettascale, Clearpath, Ekumen, eProsima, and PickNik, Silicon Valley Robotics, Canonical and Open Navigation — and all others who wish to sign up to get involved. In addition to continuing our teams’ contributions to ROS, Gazebo, and Open-RMF, for the first time we will participate in their governance with Intrinsic representatives serving on the Technical Governance Committee (TGC) and the Project Management Committee (PMC) as mapped out by a formal charter.

‍

By vastly expanding and encouraging the involvement of the robotics industry and the global robotics developer community as a whole on these essential open source projects, we’re looking forward to complementing and supporting the OSRF’s mission and structure — while also building new opportunities and helping to accelerate a new generation of developers.

‍