Intrinsic Acquires OSRC and OSRC-SG
A rare group photo from ROSCon 2022 that captures the spirit of the deal.
Brian Gerkey
Today represents a big day in our history. You can read all about Intrinsic’s acquisition here, and our message on Discourse to the ROS (and Gazebo and Open-RMF) community here, but I’d like to tell you about the structural side of the acquisition in this post and also share why I'm excited about this news.
Why are we making this change, and why now
We created Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF) in 2012 as a nonprofit with the mission of stewarding the ROS community. In 2016, OSRF created the for-profit subsidiary Open Source Robotics Corporation (OSRC) to work directly with companies that wanted development help on open source robotics projects. This led to engagements such as our work with Toyota Research Institute, Bosch, so many virtual challenges, and much more. Two years later, another subsidiary was created to allow greater involvement in Asia Pacific. The creation of Open Source Robotics Corporation Singapore (OSRC-SG) led directly to the release of Open-RMF.
Together, these companies made up Open Robotics, which acted as our umbrella brand. I was often surprised to encounter people who were under the assumption that Open Robotics was only a nonprofit, but we have had for-profit subsidiaries for some time now.
Intrinsic is acquiring assets from these for-profit subsidiaries, OSRC and OSRC-SG. OSRF continues as the independent nonprofit it's always been, with the same mission, now with some new faces and a clearer focus on governance, community engagement, and other stewardship activities. That means there is no disruption in the day-to-day activities with respect to OSRF’s core commitment to ROS, Gazebo, Open-RMF, and the entire community.
In fact, with Intrinsic’s investment through this partnership, OSRC engineers will be joining Intrinsic and we anticipate long-term benefits for the entire community through increased development on the core open source platforms. The team at Intrinsic includes many long-time ROS and Gazebo users and we have come to realize how much they value the ROS community and want to maintain and contribute.
The robotics industry continues to grow in both size and complexity, as does the need for reliable open source software. This is a very good thing. But at the same time, 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 development of ROS, Gazebo, and Open-RMF in a sustainable way.
Together we will give the robotics community great new features in ROS, Gazebo, and Open-RMF, while also building new products and services on top. We will continue to improve ROS, Gazebo, and Open-RMF so that they can be used in even more domains, with ever-higher demands for software quality, testing, and platform support.
What is next for OSRF
I'm joining Intrinsic as part of the OSRC team, and I will continue to serve on the board of OSRF. Given that transition, it's my great pleasure to announce that Vanessa Yamzon Orsi is the new CEO of OSRF. Vanessa’s name may not be familiar to some of you, but she has been involved with the company since 2014 and has run the financial and operational side of the organization since 2019. Before joining Open Robotics, Vanessa had fifteen years of experience working with various companies and nonprofit organizations in Silicon Valley.
“I have had a front-row seat to the passion, dedication, and expertise of the open-source robotics community for the past eight years and am truly honored to be in a position to help steward OSRF in the future. I am already excited about the potential to expand our already significant worldwide community. I learned from the best team at Open Robotics, and I look forward to continuing this great work with the guidance of our amazing board.”
—Vanessa Yamzon Orsi, CEO of OSRF
I’m also excited to announce that Geoffrey Biggs is now the CTO of OSRF. I have known and worked with Geoff on open source robot software for almost twenty years, even before ROS came along. Among other contributions, Geoff has been a software engineer at Open Source Robotics Corporation, where he worked mainly on ROS and Open-RMF. Prior to this, he worked as a senior researcher at Japan's Institute of Advanced Industrial Engineering Technology, and an engineering manager at Tier IV, Inc., where he was part of the technical leadership team of the Autoware Foundation. Geoff is well-known for his leadership in the Japanese ROS community, including the organization of ROSCon JP.
“I have been involved in open-source robotics software for many years, but my involvement in ROS, Gazebo and Open-RMF has been my most fulfilling work, knowing that these projects benefit so many people around the world. I am looking forward to helping take OSRF forward in a way that benefits all users of these projects - large and small - for the advancement of robotics”
— Geoffrey Biggs, CTO of OSRF
There are also new appointments to the OSRF Board of Directors. Joining Steve Cousins, Ryan Gariepy, and myself on the Board are two prestigious individuals: Sabine Hauert and Yuki Nakagawa.
Sabine Hauert is Associate Professor of Swarm Engineering at University of Bristol. She leads a team of researchers working on a wide variety of swarms for real-world applications, many powered by robots using ROS. Before joining the University of Bristol, Sabine engineered swarms at MIT and EPFL. She has served on national and international committees, including the UK Robotics Growth Partnership, the Royal Society Working Group on Machine Learning, and several IEEE boards. Sabine is also President and Executive Trustee of nonprofits robohub.org and aihub.org, which connect the robotics and AI communities to the public.
“I have long been an advocate for science communication, particularly as it relates to the future of robotics. I am thrilled to join the Board of OSRF and continue to highlight the great potential our field has to offer the world.”
—Sabine Hauert, Associate Professor, University of Bristol.
Yuki is the Founder and CEO at RT Corporation and has been involved in Japanese humanoid and home robotics for almost her entire career. Yuki is on the organizing committee of ROSCon JP, the local ROSCon for the Japanese ROS community, and has been involved in educational robots in Japan for many years. She started RT Corporation in 2005, a company that develops, sells, and trains university students and professional engineers about service robots, and became its representative director. RT is the official ROS supporter of Denso Wave COBOTTA. In 2020, she received the Strait of Magellan Award. In 2022, she was certified as a fellow of robot education and food robotics from the Robotics Society of Japan. Her company is one of the early adopters of ROS in Japan.
“I have not only been passionate about robots for almost my entire life, but equally passionate about teaching and training students and engineers about the promise of the robotics industry. I can’t imagine a better organization to join that will allow me to continue my efforts to grow the worldwide ROS community.”
— Yuki Nakagawa, President and CEO, RT Corporation
For any of you who have had the pleasure of meeting Sabine or Yuki, you know how passionate they are about our community. I am looking forward to working alongside them and to seeing their leadership, creativity, and expertise benefit all of us.
The new leadership team is committed to OSRF's long-standing mission to "support the development, distribution, and adoption of open source software for use in robotics research, education, and product development."
“It seems like just yesterday that OSRF was spun out of Willow Garage, but both the years and stature have grown considerably. Even before that spinout, it was always the intention of Willow Garage to have ROS and Gazebo under the auspices of an independent, nonprofit entity. Just as The Linux Foundation has responsibility for its open source communities, so too will OSRF have responsibility for all things related to open source robotics.”
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. The 12th ROSCon is already scheduled for October 2023 in New Orleans and will continue its upward trajectory as the world’s pre-eminent development conference on open source robotics.
The robotics industry is a small one, as you know, so there are already many talented ROS and Gazebo experts and advocates working at Intrinsic. To highlight only one of many, I have known and admired Intrinsic CTO Torsten Kroeger for over a decade, since the early days of ROS, when I was at Willow Garage and he was next door at Stanford. Like many of you, Torsten, Intrinsic CEO Wendy Tan White, and their team are creating a robotics business that will leverage a great deal of open source software. I look forward to working closely with them to further develop ROS and build on top of it in the future.
““When I co-founded ROSCon in 2012 it was because I knew there was promise, potential, and passion around the open source robotics community that needed a home. It is amazing and gratifying to see not only how much the ROS, Gazebo and Open-RMF communities have grown, but how much impact they have had on business, academia, and countless other industries.” ”
Other members of the Intrinsic team were newer to me, but as I’ve gotten to know them my belief in the change that we're announcing today has only grown stronger. Wendy, for example, wrote a three- pager for Alphabet proposing the collaboration. When I showed it to our Board they were surprised to learn we hadn’t written it ourselves. She told me that “Intrinsic’s mission is to democratize access to robotics; ROS, its open source community and ethos are critical to that mission.” Our teams realized they have the same mission and philosophy.
We probably don't have every answer you're looking for today, but we'll be able to share more over time. As you know, my team and I have spent more than a decade working in the best interests of our community, and we're not about to stop now. I hope that you all share my excitement on this momentous day for the world of open source robotics!