Open standards must remain open

Their statement comes in the wake of the US equivalent of the Uniclass system – MasterFormat, published by the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) – no longer being available for free.

In a blog post, Wilkinson and Nisbet (both members of nima’s thinktank, GIIG) write: “The move has faced significant industry pushback due to new licensing fees and concerns about privatising previously public-use standards. North American industry professionals are upset that the new licensing fees (starting at US$699 a year for firms with under US$2m revenue) are imposed on all entities who use MasterFormat in any way: designers, construction product manufacturers, contractors, subcontractors, owners, building managers, etc.”

In the UK, Uniclass was initially managed by the Construction Project Information Committee (CPIC), until NBS won the contract to manage the system from 2014. Wilkinson and Nisbet note that NBS asserts: “Uniclass is a free service. All Uniclass tables are available to download and use completely free of charge.”

The pair further note that NBS emphasises that Uniclass is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence, “allowing users and organisations to share and apply the tables on any kind of personal or commercial project”.

“So, just as they were when managed by CPIC, Uniclass tables remain openly accessible. Information by and about CPIC has also been archived on the free-to-use DesigningBuildings website. And, due to this long-term openness, Uniclass has become firmly embedded in project and long-term asset management in the UK and beyond,” Wilkinson and Nisbet write.

They conclude: “Nima, through activities like the Information Management Initiative, is looking to maintain open, industrywide approaches that all businesses can use as foundations for their work. Uniclass is a key part of those foundations, with increasing interest and use around the world