The Robot Framework association (hereinafter referred to as “the association”) is a non-profit association to ensure the development of the Robot Framework automation tool and the distribution of information now and in the future. The association serves as a vital basis for the tool itself, the surrounding ecosystem and the community.
Member companies
Aito, Aktia, Botlabs, Gapgemini NL, CHILI, Cisco, Comiq, DB Schenker, Deutsche Post Adress, Digia, Eficode, Eliga, Etteplan, Facile.it, Finnair, Henix, HiQ Finland, Humanitec, imbus, Knowit, KUKA, Luoto & Company, Meliora, Nets, Nokia, NorthCode, OP, OpusCapita, Oura, Ouro, Q-Factory, Qentinel Oy, Qentinel Finland / Gofore, Reaktor, Robocorp, Segron, Singnant Health, Siili, Sisua Digital, SleepIQ Labs, Symbio, Testimate, Tieto, Vala Group, Veikkaus and two companies which don’t want to be public about it
Board
Ismo Aro (Chairman of the Board)
Tatu Kairi (Secretary)
Ossi Koivistoinen (Vice Chairman of the Board)
Antti Karjalainen
Hanna Saari,
René Rohner
Ari Alsi
Treasurer
Miikka Salonen
Board Meetings
The Board of Directors convened a total of four times of the year. 23.4, 4.6, 17.9 and 10.12. All sessions were held online.
Growth
The growth was again one of the main topics during the year 2020. The growth of our association has been good, altogether 12 members more than last year and also many companies joined from abroad.
Events
Because of the COVID-19, the growth of our meetup.com community was not that strong and was not in our focus. Even though the association is still paying meetup.com fees, there has not been that many events organized.
The association held a conference called RoboCon 2020 in January. The event was organized by a workgroup with the help from an event organizer called Tapaus for ensuring the best user experience in the conference. RoboCon was again a great event and it has established its place where knowledge is shared and people meet.
There was also a new event called World Wide Workshop Wednesday (WWWW) held. In WWWW there were multiple different Workshops with various topics. The session was totally online. WWWW was organized voluntarily.
Development of Robot Framework
There was one minor and two patch releases funded by the association. Most of the development for major version 4.0 was done during the year 2020. The association was not the only one who supported that development, Robocorp also contributed a significant amount of work for the major release.
Releases
Robot Framework 3.2 on Apr 27, 2020
Robot Framework 3.2.1 on Jul 30, 2020
Robot Framework 3.2.2 on Sep 1, 2020
Robot Framework 4.0 beta 1 on Nov 30, 2020
One remarkable thing that happened, which was not directly funded by the association, was the Browser library. Discussion and kick-start happened inside the association forums and work was carried out by the team funded by Robocorp.
Closing words
Even though we have had a year of pandemia, the association’s activity has been strongly growing in the past year, in terms of community activity, enrolling member companies, expanding globally and in the form of new releases.