QUALITY_DECLARATION

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

rmw_fastrtps_cpp Quality Declaration

The package rmw_fastrtps_cpp claims to be in the Quality Level 2 category.

Below are the rationales, notes, and caveats for this claim, organized by each requirement listed in the Package Requirements for Quality Level 2 in REP-2004.

Version Policy [1]

Version Scheme [1.i]

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

Version Stability [1.ii]

rmw_fastrtps_cpp 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 symbols in the installed headers are considered part of the public API.

All installed headers are in the include directory of the package, headers in any other folders are not installed and considered private.

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

rmw_fastrtps_cpp 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]

rmw_fastrtps_cpp contains C and C++ code and therefore must be concerned with ABI stability, and will maintain ABI stability within a ROS distribution.

Change Control Process [2]

rmw_fastrtps_cpp 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 request must pass CI on all tier 1 platforms.

Documentation Policy [2.v]

All pull requests must resolve related documentation changes before merging.

Documentation [3]

Feature Documentation [3.i]

Some of the rmw_fastrtps_cpp features are documented on the repository level README. Much of Fast DDS itself has feature documentation hosted publicly.

Public API Documentation [3.ii]

Most of rmw_fastrtps_cpp has embedded API documentation. It is not yet hosted publicly.

License [3.iii]

The license for rmw_fastrtps_cpp is Apache 2.0, and a summary is in each source file, the type is declared in the package.xml manifest file, and a full copy of the license is in the 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]

All rmw_fastrtps_cpp public features are ROS middleware features.

Unit, integration, and system tests higher up in the stack, such as those found in test_rmw_implementation, test_rclcpp, and test_communication packages, provide feature coverage. Nightly CI jobs in ci.ros2.org and build.ros2.org, where rmw_fastrtps_cpp is the default rmw implementation, thoroughly exercise this middleware.

Public API Testing [4.ii]

rmw_fastrtps_cpp implements the ROS middleware public API, but also provides public API of its own.

Unit tests located in the test directory provide coverage for public but rmw_fastrtps_cpp specific API. New additions or changes to this API require tests before being added.

Unit, integration, and system tests higher up in the stack, such as those found in test_rmw_implementation, test_rclcpp, and test_communication packages, ensure compliance with the ROS middleware API specification (see rmw package) and further extend coverage.

Coverage [4.iii]

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

This package claims to meet the coverage requirements for the current quality level, even though it doesn’t have 95% line coverage. The justification is that the only uncovered lines have to do with system resource exhaustion and Fast DDS internal failure.

A summary of how these statistics are calculated can be found in the ROS 2 On-boarding guide.

Performance [4.iv]

rmw_fastrtps_cpp does not currently have performance tests.

Linters and Static Analysis [4.v]

rmw_fastrtps_cpp uses and passes all the standard linters and static analysis tools for a C++ package as described in 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]

rmw_fastrtps_cpp has the following runtime ROS dependencies:

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. It also has several test dependencies, which do not affect the resulting quality of the package, because they are only used to build and run the test code.

Direct Runtime Non-ROS Dependencies [5.iii]

rmw_fastrtps_cpp has the following runtime non-ROS dependencies.

  • fastcdr: eProsima Fast CDR claims to be Quality Level 2. For more information, please refer to its QUALITY DECLARATION

  • fastrtps: eProsima Fast DDS claims to be Quality Level 2. For more information, please refer to its QUALITY DECLARATION

Platform Support [6]

rmw_fastrtps_cpp 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:

Security [7]

Vulnerability Disclosure Policy [7.i]

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

Current status Summary

The chart below compares the requirements in the REP-2004 with the current state of the rmw_fastrtps_cpp package.

Number

Requirement

Current state

1

Version policy

—

1.i

Version Policy available

✓

1.ii

Stable version

✓

1.iii

Declared public API

✓

1.iv

API stability policy

✓

1.v

ABI stability policy

✓

1.vi_

API/ABI stable within ros distribution

✓

2

Change control process

—

2.i

All changes occur on change request

✓

2.ii

Contributor origin (DCO, CLA, etc)

✓

2.iii

Peer review policy

✓

2.iv

CI policy for change requests

✓

2.v

Documentation policy for change requests

✓

3

Documentation

—

3.i

Per feature documentation

✓

3.ii

Per public API item documentation

*

3.iii

Declared License(s)

✓

3.iv

Copyright in source files

✓

3.v.a

Quality declaration linked to README

✓

3.v.b

Centralized declaration available for peer review

✓

4

Testing

—

4.i

Feature items tests

✓

4.ii

Public API tests

*

4.iii.a

Using coverage

✓

4.iii.a

Coverage policy

✓

4.iv.a

Performance tests (if applicable)

☓

4.iv.b

Performance tests policy

✓

4.v.a

Code style enforcement (linters)

✓

4.v.b

Use of static analysis tools

✓

5

Dependencies

—

5.i

Must not have ROS lower level dependencies

✓

5.ii

Optional ROS lower level dependencies

✓

5.iii

Justifies quality use of non-ROS dependencies

✓

6

Platform support

—

6.i

Support targets Tier1 ROS platforms

✓

7

Security

—

7.i

Vulnerability Disclosure Policy

✓