I didn't know it was funded by an ex-googler, Mr Hassan, however I did try ros a few times and it seems a very well designed platform to get started on robotics.
I really like ROS:
- it has an arduino plugin to immediately get the arduino integrated in the ROS ecosystem (i.e. rostopic) , ideal for novices like myself
- it has lots of packages from kinect/xtion to drive servo motors like dynamixel's
- OpenCV bridge
I mostly use the python bindings as I find them easier to deal with than compile everything (and possibly cross compile given i'm running ROS on arm and that it would take forever to build there)
Sad news!
