ROS 2 Rolling Ridley Logo & Swag
It has been well over a year since we quietly rolled out the first rolling release for ROS 2 under the codename Rolling Ridley. For those of you who are still unfamiliar with our rolling release, it is our new approach to synchronizing and releasing code. The ROS 2 Rolling Ridley release is simply the bleeding edge of ROS 2 development delivered at a regular cadence. Unlike our long term support (LTS) and off year releases, the Rolling Ridley release is essentially a snapshot of the most current branch of each ROS 2 repository. The advantage of this approach it that it gives package developers and easy way to keep up to date with all the new features that are constantly being added to ROS 2. In fact, each new ROS 2 release is really just a copy of Rolling Ridely at a particular point in time, which marks the beginning of the development cycle for the next release. These formal releases are the ones that are tested thoroughly and contain a completed set of new features. Multiple Linux distributions use this technique to help keep their users up to date with the latest patches and features.
The Rolling Release has greatly simplified the ROS 2 release process and made creating the ROS 2 Galactic release much simpler than prior releases. We figured it was probably time to give the Rolling release its own logo. We called on our favorite graphic artist Josh Ellingson to create his interpretation of a Rolling Ridley Sea Turtle. We've made three versions of this logo are now available in the ROS artwork repository. This time we've released low-res versions of the color, black and white, and transparent logos to make life easier for anyone who wants to put together a blog post about the ROS 2 Rolling release. Along with the main logo we've also created a few other assets for the community to use including an icon for TurtleSim and an animated gif of a rollerskating Ridley Sea Turtle just for fun. Both of these assets are available at a variety of resolutions so you can use them as emojis in Slack, Discord, Discourse, and anywhere else you desire.
TeeSpring Swag Selection
Finally, what is a ROS release without t-shirts and swag? To cap it all off we're happy to announce a new swag campaign for ROS 2 Rolling Ridley. Because we get so many requests for swag we decided to put together our largest collection of distro swag yet. If you are looking for decorations for your laptop or wall we have stickers and posters available on Zazzle. T-shirts (in a variety of cuts, colors, and sizes), hoodies, beach towels, leggings, masks, tapestries, and throw pillows are available on T-Spring. This time we've switched vendors and Teespring has upgraded their printing process, so we're fairly confident that they'll hold up in the wash. Finally, since this swag is for the rolling release, we don't have a planned end date for this sale; so feel free to order now or wait for the holidays.