Just a little note to recognize an open-source organization that has risen from swamp of discontent among some Autodesk Revit customers. OSArch has just announced itself as a development resource for people working in the AEC fields. The organization plans to develop open-source software for the AEC industry and also help people connect to the resources that are already available. They say the community is 700 strong and they’ve been working for 10 months building software, writing tutorials and documentation, provide discussion forums and host a wiki about free software for the AEC industry.

As Autodesk watchers know the issue of “The Letter” is ongoing with discussions continuing on LinkedIn, and various discussion groups. We heard about OSArch by checking in with Tim Waldock’s LinkedIn post about a similar letter written in 2014.

So far, but who knows for how long, unhappy Revit users often don’t want to move to another software they just want Revit to live up to its former promise. OSArch could be a resource to help push Revit from behind.

What do we think?

OSArch is very new, but it’s enlightening to check out the OSArch Wiki and see the work that’s been going on. Autodesk spent a significant portion of Autodesk University talking about the potential for open-source development to build an ecosystem of tools uniquely suited to groups of customers. OSArch is just appearing on the radar screen, let’s see what happens next.