Announcing ROS Hydromedusa Beta Release

We are pleased to announce that ROS Hydromedusa Beta 1 is now available for download. 

ROS Hydro will be the transition distribution from the old 6 month cycle to the new 12 month cycle as discussed previously on ros-users@. 

Hyrdro marks the first widespread deployment of packages built on using the new catkin infrastructure.  So far over 500 packages are released and building in Hydro using catkin. 

There have been many packages upgraded.  The Hydro release includes updates to core libraries including Gazebo 1.9, PCL 1.7, and tf2.  For packages with major updates there is a migration guide available at: http://www.ros.org/wiki/hydro/Migration

(Package maintainers please update the migration guide with any major changes from your packages.)

For the status of the builds in Hydro you can visit: http:// www.ros.org/debbuild/hydro.html 

The release of Hydro has been facilitated by the centeralization of releases on the rosdistro repository on GitHub, https://github.com/ros/rosdistro .This repository tracks all the releases and viewing it's history you can see the many contributors to ROS from around the world.  This repository has over 100 committers with well over 1000 pull requests serviced in under a year of operation.  

Part of what has helped make the rosdistro repository effective has been that its operation is now standardized in REP 137 http://ros.org/reps/rep-0137.html

During the Hydro development cycle many REPs have been updated.  To see all REPs visit http://ros.org/reps/rep-0000.html

A quick summary of updates to REPs is here: 

REP 100, 109, 122 have been updated for clarification 

REP 106 polled topics, has been withdrawn

REP 127 package.xml format has been accepted

REP 131 Groovy Variants has been made active

REP 132 Changelogs in packages has been accepted

REP 133 Seperation of build and source trees has been made active

REP 134 catkin_make_isolated has been made active

REP 135 Driver namespace practices has been made active

REP 136 Releasing 3rdparty packages has been made active

REP 137 ROS distribuition files has been accepted

REP 138 LaserScan standards has been made active

REP 140 package.xml format 2 is under development

Part of the process of releasing ROS which we are now formalizing is the concept of package maintainers which is distinct from package developers. These two roles are often performed by the same person, but it not necessary especially as packages become more mature.  For a summary of the responsibilities of a package maintainer see the Maintenance Guide on the wiki at: http://www.ros.org/wiki/MaintenanceGuide

Going forward we will be setting up a forum where maintainers can volunteer to maintain packages and the community can request maintainers for packages.  When this happens please consider volunteering to do so.  Right now there are a few people in the community who maintain a lot of packages.  By distributing this work across the community we can increase the sustainable size of our maintained system.  

The next release of ROS has been chosen to be Indigo Igloo. The planning page for Indigo has been posted at: http://www.ros.org/wiki/indigo/Planning based on the new release schedule it will be the beginning of our new 12 month release cycle and will be syncronized with the Ubuntu LTS support 14.04.  

The upcoming release of Hydromedusa, along with the beginning of the development cycle for Indigo, will mark the End of LIfe for ROS Fuerte.  After the Hydro release the Fuerte buildfarm infrastructure will be torn down and no new releases will be made.  This follows our pattern of having two supported distributions plus one distribution under development at all times.  We will, however, continue to host the existing documentation and debian packages for ROS Fuerte.  

As is tradition for ROS releases we have a great new logo from Josh Elingson.  For this release we are going to make t-shirts available to everyone. The proceeds from the t-shirt sales will cover the cost of the art work, and any additional funds will be used to cover ROS infrastructure costs and support future ROS maintainance. Look for an email early next week to see the new logo and order your own ROS Hydromedusa Tshirt.

We have more than 100 new or updated packages.  see the full list below:

    

    Packages Added: 

ros-hydro-clearpath-base : 0.3.1

ros-hydro-desktop-full : 1.0.0

ros-hydro-force-torque-sensor-controller : 0.5.1

ros-hydro-imu-sensor-controller : 0.5.1

ros-hydro-joint-limits-interface : 0.5.1

ros-hydro-rocon : 0.5.3

ros-hydro-rosauth : 0.1.3

ros-hydro-simulators : 1.0.0

ros-hydro-turtlebot-apps : 2.1.0

ros-hydro-turtlebot-core-apps : 2.1.0

ros-hydro-turtlebot-panorama : 2.1.0

Packages Removed: 

ros-hydro-controllers-msgs : 0.4.0

ros-hydro-ros-control : 0.4.0

ros-hydro-test-roscpp : 1.9.47

Packages Updated: 

ros-hydro-actionlib-tutorials : 0.1.6 -> 0.1.7

ros-hydro-amcl : 1.11.1 -> 1.11.3

ros-hydro-base-local-planner : 1.11.1 -> 1.11.3

ros-hydro-carrot-planner : 1.11.1 -> 1.11.3

ros-hydro-catkin : 0.5.70 -> 0.5.71

ros-hydro-clear-costmap-recovery : 1.11.1 -> 1.11.3

ros-hydro-clearpath-bringup : 0.3.0 -> 0.3.1

ros-hydro-clearpath-common : 0.3.0 -> 0.3.1

ros-hydro-clearpath-teleop : 0.3.0 -> 0.3.1

ros-hydro-common-tutorials : 0.1.6 -> 0.1.7

ros-hydro-concert-conductor : 0.5.3 -> 0.5.4

ros-hydro-concert-orchestra : 0.5.3 -> 0.5.4

ros-hydro-controller-interface : 0.4.0 -> 0.5.1

ros-hydro-controller-manager : 0.4.0 -> 0.5.1

ros-hydro-controller-manager-msgs : 0.4.0 -> 0.5.1

ros-hydro-controller-manager-tests : 0.4.0 -> 0.5.1

ros-hydro-costmap-2d : 1.11.1 -> 1.11.3

ros-hydro-dwa-local-planner : 1.11.1 -> 1.11.3

ros-hydro-effort-controllers : 0.5.0 -> 0.5.1

ros-hydro-eigen-conversions : 1.10.4 -> 1.10.5

ros-hydro-eigen-stl-containers : 0.1.3 -> 0.1.4

ros-hydro-fake-localization : 1.11.1 -> 1.11.3

ros-hydro-forward-command-controller : 0.5.0 -> 0.5.1

ros-hydro-geometry : 1.10.4 -> 1.10.5

ros-hydro-global-planner : 1.11.1 -> 1.11.3

ros-hydro-hardware-interface : 0.4.0 -> 0.5.1

ros-hydro-interactive-marker-tutorials : 0.8.0 -> 0.8.1

ros-hydro-joint-state-controller : 0.5.0 -> 0.5.1

ros-hydro-kdl-conversions : 1.10.4 -> 1.10.5

ros-hydro-laser-filters : 1.6.10 -> 1.6.11

ros-hydro-librviz-tutorial : 0.8.0 -> 0.8.1

ros-hydro-map-server : 1.11.1 -> 1.11.3

ros-hydro-move-base : 1.11.1 -> 1.11.3

ros-hydro-move-base-msgs : 1.11.1 -> 1.11.3

ros-hydro-move-slow-and-clear : 1.11.1 -> 1.11.3

ros-hydro-nav-core : 1.11.1 -> 1.11.3

ros-hydro-navfn : 1.11.1 -> 1.11.3

ros-hydro-navigation : 1.11.1 -> 1.11.3

ros-hydro-nodelet-tutorial-math : 0.1.6 -> 0.1.7

ros-hydro-pcl-ros : 1.1.1 -> 1.1.3

ros-hydro-perception-pcl : 1.1.1 -> 1.1.3

ros-hydro-pluginlib-tutorials : 0.1.6 -> 0.1.7

ros-hydro-position-controllers : 0.5.0 -> 0.5.1

ros-hydro-redis : 0.5.3 -> 0.5.4

ros-hydro-robot-pose-ekf : 1.11.1 -> 1.11.3

ros-hydro-rocon-concert : 0.5.3 -> 0.5.4

ros-hydro-rocon-gateway : 0.5.3 -> 0.5.4

ros-hydro-rocon-gateway-tests : 0.5.3 -> 0.5.4

ros-hydro-rocon-hub : 0.5.3 -> 0.5.4

ros-hydro-rocon-hub-client : 0.5.3 -> 0.5.4

ros-hydro-rocon-multimaster : 0.5.3 -> 0.5.4

ros-hydro-rocon-test : 0.5.3 -> 0.5.4

ros-hydro-rocon-tf-reconstructor : 0.5.3 -> 0.5.4

ros-hydro-rocon-unreliable-experiments : 0.5.3 -> 0.5.4

ros-hydro-rocon-utilities : 0.5.3 -> 0.5.4

ros-hydro-ros-controllers : 0.5.0 -> 0.5.1

ros-hydro-rotate-recovery : 1.11.1 -> 1.11.3

ros-hydro-rviz-plugin-tutorials : 0.8.0 -> 0.8.1

ros-hydro-rviz-python-tutorial : 0.8.0 -> 0.8.1

ros-hydro-srdfdom : 0.2.5 -> 0.2.6

ros-hydro-tf : 1.10.4 -> 1.10.5

ros-hydro-tf-conversions : 1.10.4 -> 1.10.5

ros-hydro-turtle-actionlib : 0.1.6 -> 0.1.7

ros-hydro-velocity-controllers : 0.5.0 -> 0.5.1

ros-hydro-visualization-marker-tutorials : 0.8.0 -> 0.8.1

ros-hydro-visualization-tutorials : 0.8.0 -> 0.8.1

ros-hydro-voxel-grid : 1.11.1 -> 1.11.3