Noetic Ninjemys: The Last Official ROS 1 Release
It all started one fall day, November 7th, 2007. That’s when the first commit to ROS was made at Willow Garage by a bunch of enterprising young engineers and researchers. That was 4581 days ago and since then ROS has grown up, perhaps more than anyone could have anticipated. In those almost thirteen years we as a community have made 12 releases happen together, and now we are proud to announce the 13th and last official ROS 1 release: Noetic Ninjemys. For reference the Ninjemys turtle is an extinct species of giant turtle that existed during the Pleistocene, it is known for its giant horns and being named after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cartoon series. Noetic is simply a word to describe something based on intellect, and there is perhaps no better way to describe the entire pursuit of ROS 1. According to Merriam Webster the etymology of the word noetic is as follows:
“Noetic derives from the Greek adjective noētikos, meaning "intellectual," from the verb noein ("to think") and ultimately from the noun nous, meaning "mind."”
Appropriately, If we have done one thing over these past years it has been thinking about how to build a community and platform for the future of robotics. As a part of that thinking process we’ve made the decision to fully dedicate all of our resources to re-writing ROS from the ground up to help the community grow and prosper. This means that while we are excited for the release, it is also with a heavy heart that we begin the process of saying goodbye to something that has been an important part to many peoples’ lives for a very long time. This process can be as slow as you need it to be. Noetic is an LTS release and has a five year support horizon; while the addition of Python 3 support makes it a great starting point for transitioning to ROS 2. While this is the last official ROS 1 release supported by Open Robotics the community is free to continue support indefinitely. Over the next few years we will make sure to support the community in the transition between versions; and while it may seem like a burden, letting software ossify like a ninjemys turtle isn’t what anyone wants.
As part of this release we would like to thank not only the core developers, but all the developers over the lifespan of ROS 1 that have made it the success that it has become. This includes the people, businesses, and academic institutions that make the ROS project the success that it is today. We look forward to many more ROS 2 releases in the future and the continued evolution of the project to support a broader audience and deployments.
Pragmatics for the release:
T-Shirts and other swag are presently available on TeeSpring.
Again we want to thank everyone who made this release a success! Thank you for all of your contributions over the years. <3