Robot Operating System (ROS) 2 - How Open Source Software and Linux is Powering the Next Generation of Robotics Katherine Scott, Open Robotics Robot Operating System (ROS) is a set of mature free and open source software packages used by the robotics community to program robots. Recently ROS had its first major version upgrade in a decade to ROS 2. This new version introduces a number of changes and new features, many of which simplify the development process and allow users to build virtual robots without ever touching a piece of hardware.