Co-founder and former CEO of Open Robotics Brian Gerkey will continue to serve on the board of OSRF while joining Intrinsic as a member of the OSRC team. Engineers from OSRC will also join Intrinsic.
The Open Source Robotics Corporation (OSRC), the for-profit division of the Open Source Robotics Foundation, which is the developer of the Robot Operating System, has been acquired by Intrinsic, a software company that was founded out of Alphabet’s X moonshot division in mid-2021 to make the use of industrial robots simpler (ROS).
Additionally, Open Source Robotics Corporation Singapore (OSRC-SG), a division of the business that was directly responsible for the publication of Open-RMF for interoperability, is being acquired by Intrinsic.
The for-profit companies OSRC and OSRC-SG are selling assets to Intrinsic. With some new faces and a stronger emphasis on governance, community participation, and other stewardship activities, the Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF) will continue to operate as the independent nonprofit organisation it has always been, with the same objective. According to OSRC, this implies that OSRF’s primary commitment to ROS, Gazebo, Open-RMF, and the broader community is not disrupted in its day-to-day operations.
In a blog announcing the deal, Gerkey states“as a small independent company at OSRC, it’s become increasingly challenging for us to meet the diverse needs of our large and growing user community and continue the commercial business of OSRC. Greater institutional support from Intrinsic and the resources from this transaction allow our team to focus on what we do best and accelerate the development of ROS, Gazebo, and Open-RMF in a sustainable way.
He continued, “ROS, Gazebo, and Open-RMF will be nurtured and advanced by OSRF. You can expect ROS 2 Iron Irwini to be available in May 2023 on schedule. Similarly, the continued operation and advancement of TurtleBot will be the responsibility of OSRF, in partnership with Clearpath Robotics and ROBOTIS.”
He further adds, “ROS, Gazebo, and Open-RMF will be nurtured and advanced by OSRF. You can expect ROS 2 Iron Irwini to be available in May 2023 on schedule. Similarly, the continued operation and advancement of TurtleBot will be the responsibility of OSRF, in partnership with Clearpath Robotics and ROBOTIS.”
