The construction industry was one of the last to address the problem of closed and proprietary data. Unlike other sectors of the economy, digitalization has been slow to develop here. The reasons for this include the traditional conservative nature of the industry, the prevalence of disparate local solutions, and the deep-rooted paper-based workflow. For decades, key construction processes relied on physical drawings, phone calls and unsynchronized databases. In this context, closed formats have long been perceived as the norm rather than an obstacle.
Experience from other industries shows that removing barriers to closed data leads to a surge in innovation, accelerated development and increased competition (B. Cyphers and K. Doctorow, “Privacy without Monopoly: Data Protection and Interoperability,” 2024). In science, the exchange of open data allows to accelerate discoveries and promote international cooperation. In medicine, it can improve the efficiency of diagnosis and treatment. In software engineering – to create ecosystems of co-creation and rapid product improvement.
According to the McKinsey report “Open Data: Unlock Innovation and Productivity with Information Flow” 2013 (McKinsey Global Institute, “Open data: Unlocking innovation and performance with liquid information,” October 1, 2013), open data has the potential to unlock $3 to $5 trillion annually across seven key industries, including construction, transportation, healthcare, and energy. According to the same study, decentralized data ecosystems enable large construction companies and contractors to reduce software development and maintenance costs, accelerating digital adoption.
The transition to open architectures, which has long started in other sectors of the economy, is gradually embracing the construction industry. Large companies and public clients, and especially financial organizations that control investments in construction projects, are increasingly demanding the use of open data and access to the source code of calculations, calculations and applications. Developers are no longer just expected to create digital solutions and show the final figures of a project – they are expected to be transparent, reproducible and independent of third-party application vendors.
Using open source solutions provides the customer with the assurance that even if external developers stop collaborating or leave the project, it will not affect the ability to further develop tools and systems. One of the main benefits of open data is its ability to eliminate the dependence of application developers on specific platforms to access data.
If a company cannot completely abandon proprietary solutions, a possible compromise is the use of reverse engineering techniques. These legal and technically sound methods allow closed formats to be transformed into more accessible, structured and suitable for integration. This is especially important when connecting to legacy systems or migrating information from one software landscape to another is required.
One of the brightest examples in the history of transition to open formats and the use of reverse engineering (legal hacking of proprietary systems) in construction is the history of the struggle to open the DWG format, widely used in computer-aided design systems (CAD). In 1998, in response to the monopoly of one software vendor, the other 15 CAD vendors formed a new alliance called “Open DWG” to provide developers with free and independent tools to work with the DWG format (the de facto standard for drawing transfer) without the need for proprietary software or closed APIs. This event was a turning point that allowed tens of thousands of companies to get free access to the closed format of a popular CAD solution from the late 1980s to today and create compatible solutions that fostered competition in the CAD market (А. Boiko, “The struggle for open data in the construction industry. The history of AUTOLISP, intelliCAD, openDWG, ODA and openCASCADE,” 15 05 2024).Today, the “Open DWG” SDK, which was first created back in 1996, is used in almost all solutions in which it is possible to import, edit and export DWG format, outside the official application of the DWG format developer.
Other technology giants are forcing similar transformations. Microsoft, once a symbol of proprietary approach, opened up the.NET Framework source code, started using Linux in the Azure cloud service infrastructure, and acquired GitHub to strengthen its position in the Open Source community (Wikipedia, “Microsoft and open source,”). Meta (formerly Facebook) released open source AI models, such as the Llama series, to foster innovation and collaboration in AI agent development. CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions that open sourceplatforms will lead the way in technological advancements over the next decade (TIME, “The Gap Between Open and Closed AI Models Might Be Shrinking. Here’s Why That Matters,” 5 November 2024).
Open Source is a software development and distribution model in which the source code is open for free use, study, modification, and distribution.
Open data and open source solutions are becoming not just a trend, but the foundation of digital sustainability. They give companies flexibility, resilience, control over their own decisions, and the ability to scale digital processes without depending on vendor policies. And, just as importantly, they give businesses back control over the most valuable resource of the 21st century – their data.
