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ROS 2

The open-source framework for building robot software: messaging between a robot's parts, shared libraries and tools, with long-term-support releases.

by Open Source Robotics Foundation · last checked Oct 18, 2026

Illustration · AI Infrastructure · not a product photo

What has been shown

Free and open source; the current long-term-support release came out on May 22, 2026.

Evidence support Company-reported

Public availability Anyone can install ROS 2 for free; the current long-term-support release, Lyrical Luth, was released on May 22, 2026 and is supported until May 2031. Open Robotics, Lyrical Luth (lyrical)

As of Oct 18, 2026 · Open Robotics (company source), Lyrical Luth (lyrical) (company source)

Can you get it?

Available now

Free to install.

As of Oct 18, 2026 · Open Robotics (company source)

Is it still alive?

Active

Four distributions are supported: Humble, Jazzy, Kilted and Lyrical.

    As of Oct 18, 2026 · Open Robotics (company source), ros2/ros2_documentation (company source)

    Free and open source. Core packages are licensed under Apache 2.0, with some packages under other permissive licences.

    What the evidence says

    1. Documented by company source

      Lyrical Luth, the twelfth ROS 2 release, came out on May 22, 2026. It is a long-term-support release, supported until May 2031. The other supported distributions are Jazzy Jalisco (until May 2029), Humble Hawksbill (until May 2027) and Kilted Kaiju (until December 2026).

      Observed Oct 18, 2026 · Open Robotics (company source), Lyrical Luth (lyrical) (company source), ros2/ros2_documentation (company source)
    2. Documented by company source

      ROS 2's core client library, rclcpp, is licensed under Apache 2.0. The ROS 2 developer guide says each package must carry a licence, "typically the Apache 2.0 license, unless the package has an existing permissive license (e.g. rviz uses three-clause BSD)."

      Observed Oct 18, 2026 · Open Robotics (company source), Developer Guide — ROS 2 Documentation (company source)
    3. Documented by company source

      The Open Source Robotics Foundation has assigned governance of ROS, Gazebo, Open-RMF and related projects to the Open Source Robotics Alliance, whose platinum members are Canonical, Intrinsic, NVIDIA and Qualcomm.

      Observed Oct 18, 2026 · Open Source Robotics Alliance (company source)
    4. Documented by company source

      A 2022 paper accepted by Science Robotics describes ROS 2 as redesigned "from the ground up" for production use and presents five case studies of its adoption, across land, sea, air, space and large warehouse fleets. Four of its five authors were at Open Robotics, which maintains ROS 2, so it is not independent.

      Observed Oct 18, 2026 · Science Robotics (preprint on arXiv) (independent reporting)

    Price

    • DownloadFreeFree and open source. Checked Oct 18, 2026. Open Robotics (company source)

    What we don't know yet

    • Everything above is company-reported: no customer, regulator or independent confirmation is in the Index yet.
    • Where it can be bought or used is not stated in the cited sources.

    See also

    Listed on

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