I don't think that is the intent of the article at all. I think the article is making a comment on building a single framework that can enable anyone to solve an arbitrary robotics problem. From the second paragraph, "The idea goes something like this: Programming robots is hard. And there are some people with really arcane skills and PhDs who are really expensive and seem to be required for some reason. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do robotics without them?"
There are host of companies, both extant and deceased, who attempted to do just that.
I don't think any ROS developer has ever made the claim that ROS makes building a robot "easy", "easier" yes, but "easy", certainly not. ROS is simply a collection of tools that people have built over the years to get their work done faster by not re-inventing the wheel. Many ROS packages have decades of real-world deployment behind them. Some ROS packages, like Nav2 and MoveIt, are incredibly helpful, other packages are difficult to use and poorly documented, just like in any open source ecosystem.
> Which in their quest to make robotics simple; made json a programming language
JSON, in ROS? I don't think that's how it works.
> massive ecosystem of abstracted complexity that breaks in undebuggable ways
If you have a solution for this I think you solved the problem of software engineering in general.
I think the article is making a comment on building a single framework that can enable anyone to solve an arbitrary robotics problem.
The thing about that statement is it's mixing two different meanings of "framework". One thing framework means is a conventional library or API in a conventional programming language. The other thing framework means is a broad, conceptual that can be reused - in this case, in many robotics problems.
Using the first meaning of framework, sure, maybe it's not useful. But using the second meaning of framework, I think it's very useful to keep looking for such a thing and getting more people involved might help.
Now in all fairness, open source tends to mean cheaper because it does reduce how much has to be invented in-house, and also (sometimes) because it lets you crowd source free labor. In software, that can lead to stuff getting completely built for free (or close) because the base costs are low and mostly consist of labor that some people might be willing to do for free. In hardware, it's likely that open source still reduces the costs, but... you can make a thousand copies of a library for free; making a thousand copies of a part is never going to be free.
I’ve been getting back into robotics lately and one thing that’s rubbing me the wrong way is these days, with PCB way, everybody seems to be making their own boards. Why? Some boards are innovative, but how come everybody needs their own FOC controller? Can we get one project going and focus on that before adding yet another FOC controller, but this time with wireless!
SEEKING VOLUNTEERS: Robot Operating System (ROS) and Gazebo Simulator
ROS is the open source software powering robots all over the globe. The project needs volunteers in every capacity, from core robotics software to visualization, data logging, and developer resources. Gazebo is our sibling library used to simulate robots prior to deploying code. Many of our repositories have "Good First Issue" tags for new contributors.
Source code and community resources for ROS, like Discord and Discourse, are all listed here:
It's easy to ignore that the projects we depend on daily might not be well-funded and are at risk of disappearing. The second best thing to commit contributions is cash!
I am the developer advocate for ROS. Many of those projects you mention are using ROS or ROS 2, and the feedback from those users was instrumental in developing ROS 2. By my last count we had approximately 400 companies using ROS and that is likely an undercount. I usually point people to the ROS 2 TSC or the ROS Industrial consortium to get a sense of who using ROS in production.
We just published a new paper on ROS 2 in Science Robotics that demonstrates ROS's use on land, sea, air, space, and industry (the link below should take you to the open publication).
I follow you on Twitter! I'm sure you don't remember me at all but I spoke to you briefly at one of the Maker Fairs nearly a decade ago and I've seen you at a few of the Open Hardware Summits. Not that you need to hear it from me but keep up the good work.
I'm also excited about the OSHWA certification. I've found a bunch of great projects through it.
I've been passively watching ROS but it's always seemed a bit heavy weight for a lot of the things I'd want to do or for what's available cheaply right now. I'm sure this will get easier as full Linux systems will become cheaper and more ubiquitous for embedded applications.
I haven't seen microROS, though, so thanks for the link, I'll check it out.
Why don't they call it open source hardware? All the parts appear to comply with the OSHWA standard. This product could be certified[0] fairly quickly.
Black live matter more than the next stupid tech trend to ride the Gartner hype cycle. Tech that doesn't include everyone shouldn't be built. Stop reading HN and get out into the streets and support your fellow human beings.
No tech in history has ever included everyone. All ideologies are lies, “buy low sell high” bullshit. Build any tech that makes the world a better place, and try to make it as inclusive as possible. My intuition is that for breakthroughs to occur, we need new technologies in creating markets for activities with high positive externalities. Look at education, for example. The budget on that seems mostly wasted, because there is not a good market to direct the spending to efficient solutions. If we look at MOOCs and KhanAcademy and similar projects, it’s clear that they are more or less worse versions of a traditional class. They could be so much more. We could have great interactive, multimedia textbooks with integrated teacher support that answer questions, and integrated exercises that auto-grade and tell you how to fix your mistakes. We could have platforms that measure and certify productivity of workers, so that the current credentialism and mad-high university prices crash down.
Our problems won’t be solved by religions. Religions have never worked. The only thing that can solve our problems is social innovation. We need better institutions that align incentives of decision-makers to their people, and create competition to drive progress. If you look at why first world countries are better than third world countries, you’ll see it’s because of better institutions, not religions. In fact, third world countries are much more keen on religion and virtue signaling. Religion thrives on poverty and corruption.
