[Joel_Mckay]

Built a few platforms over the years, and can concur robotics is nontrivial.

ROS has some fundamental design flaws, but does integrate most development software from various research areas. In many cases, the sub-projects were abandoned decades ago, and only ROS developers keep these components operational.

The primary mistake most naive academics make is assuming you are dealing with a single problem domain. Robotics is different from simple automation in that it has 4+ different primary concurrent systems that must share state.

There is also the IP issues with parts of projects like OpenCV, and the patent holders (university legal departments) make it nearly impossible to license. i.e. unless you have >$3m to drop on each component... expect to get ignored or sued in a commercial setting.

This is why we can't have nice things, as most FOSS software is perpetually Beta ... Thus, nearly impossible to "clean" and deploy in a commercial setting due to coincidental contamination from the original IP rights holders (not the coder.) =3

https://youtu.be/_lOT2p_FCvA?si=10TqsftmOedHPG-B&t=30