ROS was started by borrowing the best practices from many early open source robotic software frameworks including switchyard by the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in support of the Stanford AI Robot STAIR (STanford AI Robot) project.[12][13] January. Willow Garage hires first employees: Jonathan Stark, Melonee Wise, Curt Meyers, and John Hsu 11/7/2007: First commit of ROS code to SourceForge[14]