About ROS 2 and simple-ros
About ROS
ROS (Robot Operating System) is an open-source ecosystem that provides the framework, tools, and libraries for building robotics applications.
About simple-ros (this project)
simple-ros exists to remove the [somewhat involved] installation step from learning ROS basics. pip install in a virtual environment gives you a working stand-in for a limited ROS 2 installation, so you can start learning with the tutorials instantly.
What it is
A from-scratch, pure-Python reimplementation of just enough of ROS 2 (nodes, topics, services, actions, parameters, and the rclpy API) to work through the official Beginner tutorials with no daemon, no DDS, and no system packages underneath. Node names, topic names, message and service shapes, and every rclpy call you write are identical to real ROS 2; the only things renamed are the outer command-line tools (ros2 becomes simple-ros2, and so on).
Based on ROS2 Lyrical.
The tutorial pages on this site are the same tutorials published by the real ROS 2 project, run against simple-ros instead of a real, full ROS 2 install.
What it is not
Not a competing framework, and not aiming for performance or feature completeness beyond what the tutorials need.