Ok, so here's my perspective (this is not necessarily the official answer though):
Just wondering what makes a package "ROS-Industrial" package?
This is a hard question to answer, as there is no certification system in place yet. At the moment, saying that a package is in the ROS-Industrial program essentially means that:
- the package is hosted on the ROS-Industrial github organisation
- is (normally) used in industrial contexts
- may be supported / maintained / contributed by the manufacturer (in case of drivers)
- is always maintained by the ROS-Industrial organisation (either the consortium directly, or one of its members)
- has gone through a review process (this is not an official review or audit yet, but currently based on the many eyes principle)
For packages in the ROS-Industrial Consortium organisation it also means that they are the result of one or more Focused Technical Project(s) or Strategic Projects.
In general we strive to provide continuity for the many packages we support. This has been something that industry users value, and is one of the aspects with which ROS-Industrial tries to differentiate itself from 'normal ROS' (if there is such a thing).
For example universal_robot as far as I examined doesn't depend on any of industrial_* packages unlike other ROS-I robot drivers (motoman, fanuc etc.)
This is not (and has never been) a requirement. Another example are the various packages in the Robotiq repository: none of those depends on industrial_* packages either, but they are part of ROS-Industrial.
As far as software interfaces go, one could say that adherence to the ROS-Industrial (motion) driver specification would make a package more 'industrial', but that does not immediately make that package part of ROS-Industrial.
