[4] Notable sources of past and current funding include DARPA, NASA, Amazon, Bosch, Nvidia and the Toyota Research Institute.

It was here that the first official Robot Operating System (ROS) distribution was released in May 2010, and quickly gained widespread adoption.

[9][1] Willow Garage was gradually dissolved in the ensuing years into several spin-offs, including the Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF), which was created in May 2012 to continue to shepherd the development of ROS and the Gazebo simulator.

[13] In September 2016, a taxable subsidiary named the Open Source Robotics Corporation (OSRC) was created to foster greater collaboration with industry.

In April 15th, 2024 the OSRA (THE OPEN SOURCE Robotics Alliance) replaced the OSRC, the OSRC was sold to Intrinsic before the creation of the OSRA initiative, and both of those things are part of a single long-term plan by the OSRF to provide a stable future for ROS, Gazebo, Open-RMF, and the infrastructure that supports them.