
Willow Garage to Shut Down - eguizzo
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-software/willow-garage-to-shut-down#.URmStSCZfZI.hackernews
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paulfitz
Tully Foote has posted this on Willow Garage's blog: "Willow Garage has
decided to enter the world of commercial opportunities with an eye to becoming
a self-sustaining company. This is an important change to our funding model."

[http://www.willowgarage.com/blog/2013/02/11/willow-garage-
ch...](http://www.willowgarage.com/blog/2013/02/11/willow-garage-changing)

~~~
Alex3917
That makes more sense. They supposedly had enough funding to last through at
least 2020 so it's hard to see why they would shut down. But since not
bothering to actually commercialize stuff has been their biggest weakness to
date, this move seems sensible.

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mdda
Love to discover the full story (what with hardware startups being in the
ascendancy and all).

Also did a quick check : ROS is at <https://github.com/ros>, OpenCV at
<https://github.com/itseez/opencv> (a mirror of the code at code.opencv.org).
It's morbid I know, but this is one hugely positive aspect of Open Source :
The code lives on...

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dljsjr
As mentioned in the article, these projects don't "belong" to Willow Garage
anymore, anyway.

OpenCV is being overseen by Itseez, and ROS is being overseen by the Open
Source Robotics Foundation. More to the point, all of Willow Garage's code
that they've been key contributors/supporters to (ROS, PCL, OpenCV, etc.) are
all currently being used as the official software platform for the DARPA
Robotics Challenge, which is only 4 months in to a potential 3 year long
competition. None of these projects are going anywhere.

~~~
mdda
Understood - but it's one thing having good intentions, and another having
been stewards of genuinely community-based projects. I was just doing a quick
check for where the code was sitting.

Willow Garage obviously contributed a lot to the whole field, and I'm glad
that their legacy will remain available for all.

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rdl
This is kind of sad (a friend of mine contracts there). I was always a bit
wary, since it seemed like "fun project" vs. "commercial company", but it was
a fun project working on amazingly awesome stuff, using cool technology.

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chrisbennet
Willow Garage has been a great source/resource for OpenCV. I wish them good
luck in there future endeavors.

~~~
matthiasv
I don't know if Willow Garage was responsible for the early incarnations of
OpenCV but that was an incredible mess suffering from high technical debt.
Fortunately, the code looks a lot better nowadays.

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eksith
That article had no real info at all!

They haven't even confirmed with the company yet. The site
(<http://www.willowgarage.com>) lists nothing relevant to this and nothing's
on their blog. Did someone at ieee even confirm any of this before publishing?

Edit... Just read again to try and find some more and this "multiple sources"
business sounds an awful lot like that X-Surface debacle. I expected more.

~~~
rdl
I have contacts within the company and they are in fact fucked/shutting down.
It's up in the air how orderly it will be.

(let the feeding frenzy begin -- there are some amazing people there. I wish I
had the funding in the bank to hire some of them today.)

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JabavuAdams
Any of them interested in space? I imagine SpaceX will be on their radar, but
they should also check out the aRocket mailing list. Lots of new-space
companies and lurkers there.

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tlarkworthy
Fuck. I hope the Open robotics initiative keeps ROS alive. I frickin love that
framework. I spose nobody actually bought the PR2

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dljsjr
ROS is under the governance of the OSRF, has been since October when the DARPA
Robotics Challenge started. ROS will be fine.

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tlarkworthy
yeah, makes me think they saw this coming and decided to protect ROS by
spinning it out.

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trimbo
Suitable Tech is one of the spinoffs trying to productize the work there.

<https://www.suitabletech.com>

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hinathan
FWIW, clicking on that link with Safari showed an unexpected popup:
"WebProcess wants to sign using key "Apple ID Authentication [timestamp] in
your keychain". Using some sort of client cert for SSL? I didn't find an
obvious reason for the interaction.

