BIM Open Source – Stimulus for PLM?

Open source is trending. I think, Android success and some other OSS projects created some winds towards future open source adoption. In my view, companies are taking notes. I was reading Graphic Speak article Autodesk releases Revit IFC Explorter as open source.

Autodesk today released its Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) exporter for Revit as open source code. Going forward the code will be managed by a five-person committee, one of whom will be an Autodesk employee.

I’ve been writing about “open source” before. However, most of my posts were about PLM and Open Source. You can take a look on some of my previous blog posts – PLM Wood And Open Source Termites and PLM and Open Source Big Games. One of the key elements of every open source solution is a community. Therefore, I found the following passage is very important:

The Revit IFC exporter open source code is managed by a five-member steering committee composed of one Autodesk employee and four members of the AEC Building Information Modeling (BIM) community. The Revit IFC Exporter Open Source Committee is chaired by Emile Kfouri, BIM application development manager, Architecture, Engineering and Construction Solutions, Autodesk.

PLM Open Source Stimulus

I found BIM is more friendly with Open Source compared to PLM. I don’t have much experience in this space, therefore, wanted to ask my BIM blogging colleagues to close my educational gap related to some solutions I discovered such as BIM Server, Open Source BIM and maybe some others. However, I made a notice and think IFC is playing a significant role in helping to establish BIM Open Source. I think, some standards like STEP or maybe JT Open can play a similar role in PLM?

What is my conclusion? I think the dynamic between BIM and PLM Open source development can be interesting. Even if BIM and PLM are different from the business standpoint, I can see a similarity in some technological and product foundations. What is your take on this? I’m looking forward to hearing both PLM and BIM people here. Please, speak your mind.

Thanks, Oleg