QUALITY_DECLARATION

This document is a declaration of software quality for the sensor_msgs package, based on the guidelines in REP-2004.

sensor_msgs Quality Declaration

The package sensor_msgs claims to be in the Quality Level 1 category as long as it is used with a Quality Level 1 middleware.

Below are the rationales, notes, and caveats for this claim, organized by each requirement listed in the Package Requirements for Quality Level 1 in REP-2004.

Version Policy [1]

Version Scheme [1.i]

sensor_msgs uses semver according to the recommendation for ROS Core packages in the ROS 2 Developer Guide.

Version Stability [1.ii]

sensor_msgs is at a stable version, i.e. >= 1.0.0. The current version can be found in its package.xml, and its change history can be found in its CHANGELOG.

Public API Declaration [1.iii]

All message and service definition files located in include, msg and srv directories are considered part of the public API.

API Stability Within a Released ROS Distribution [1.iv]/[1.vi]

sensor_msgs will not break public API within a released ROS distribution, i.e. no major releases once the ROS distribution is released.

ABI Stability Within a Released ROS Distribution [1.v]/[1.vi]

sensor_msgs contains C++ code and is therefore concerned with ABI stability. It will not break ABI stability within a released ROS distribution.

Change Control Process [2]

sensor_msgs follows the recommended guidelines for ROS Core packages in the ROS 2 Developer Guide.

Change Requests [2.i]

This package requires that all changes occur through a pull request.

Contributor Origin [2.ii]

This package uses DCO as its confirmation of contributor origin policy. More information can be found in CONTRIBUTING.

Peer Review Policy [2.iii]

Following the recommended guidelines for ROS Core packages, all pull requests must have at least 1 peer review.

Continuous Integration [2.iv]

All pull requests must pass CI on all tier 1 platforms

Documentation Policy [2.v]

All pull requests must resolve related documentation changes before merging.

Documentation

Feature Documentation [3.i]

sensor_msgs has a list of provided messages and services. New messages and services require their own documentation in order to be added.

Public API Documentation [3.ii]

sensor_msgs has embedded API documentation, but it is not currently hosted.

License [3.iii]

The license for sensor_msgs is Apache 2.0, the type is declared in the package.xml manifest file, and a full copy of the license is in the repository level LICENSE file.

There is an automated test which runs a linter that ensures each file has a license statement.

Most recent test results can be found here

Testing [4]

Feature Testing [4.i]

Most of the features in sensor_msgs have corresponding tests which simulate typical usage, and they are located in the test directory. New features are required to have tests before being added.

Results of these feature tests can be found here

Public API Testing [4.ii]

Each part of the public non-generated C++ API has tests, and new additions or changes to the public API require tests before being added. The tests aim to cover both typical usage and corner cases, but are quantified by contributing to code coverage.

Results of these API tests can be found here

Coverage [4.iii]

sensor_msgs follows the recommendations for ROS Core packages in the ROS 2 Developer Guide, and opts to use line coverage instead of branch coverage.

This includes:

  • tracking and reporting line coverage statistics

  • achieving and maintaining a reasonable branch line coverage (90-100%)

  • no lines are manually skipped in coverage calculations

Changes are required to make a best effort to keep or increase coverage before being accepted, but decreases are allowed if properly justified and accepted by reviewers.

Current coverage statistics can be viewed here. A description of how coverage statistics are summarized from this page, can be found in the “ROS 2 Onboarding Guide”.

Performance [4.iv]

sensor_msgs follows the recommendations for performance testing of C code in the ROS 2 Developer Guide, and opts to do performance analysis on each release rather than each change.

System level performance benchmarks that cover features of sensor_msgs can be found at:

Changes that introduce regressions in performance must be adequately justified in order to be accepted and merged.

Linters and Static Analysis [4.v]

sensor_msgs uses and passes all the standard linters and static analysis tools for its generated C++ and Python code to ensure it follows the ROS 2 Developer Guide.

Results of the nightly linter tests can be found here.

Dependencies [5]

Direct Runtime ROS Dependencies [5.i]/[5.ii]

sensor_msgs has the following runtime ROS dependencies, which are at Quality Level 1:

It has several “buildtool” dependencies, which do not affect the resulting quality of the package, because they do not contribute to the public library API.

Direct Runtime Non-ROS Dependencies [5.iii]

sensor_msgs does not have any runtime non-ROS dependencies.

Platform Support [6]

sensor_msgs supports all of the tier 1 platforms as described in REP-2000, and tests each change against all of them.

Currently nightly results can be seen here:

Vulnerability Disclosure Policy [7.i]

This package conforms to the Vulnerability Disclosure Policy in REP-2006.