That's fair, especially around firmware and things like OTA updates and lower level controls/safety you'd want to keep that closer to team.

But on the long-tail of autonomy options? Implementing the latest papers, trying cutting edge solutions, I bet a thriving open-source community could be very helpful ala PR2, given that the hardware is already open-source.

Nothing stopping you from picking and choosing from the various implementations to build into a streamlined product offering on the front end.