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Maarten Vroegindeweij, founder and chairman of the OpenAEC Foundation, joins AEC Business to explain why he believes artificial intelligence will not kill open source software, but help it win. A structural engineer by training, Maarten has pursued open source ideals for 17 years, from an early GIS-BIM plugin for Revit to deep involvement in the FreeCAD and Blender communities.
Maarten describes the founding of OpenAEC in 2021, an attempt to get the industry to fund open source BIM tools, and why large contractors and architecture firms liked the idea but would not pay for it.
The conversation turns to how AI changed that calculus. With coding assistants and tools like MCP servers, a single developer with no GIS or Python background built a full 3D environment in days, a moment that convinced Maarten AI would remove the cost barrier to open source development entirely.
Today, OpenAEC has around 20 applications in various stages of development, built by a team of 12. They all converge on IFCX as a common data language to unify BIM models, cost calculations, energy studies, and even PDF reports into a single connected system.
Maarten argues that software IP is becoming obsolete, that future business models will center on services and AI built on open code, and that domain expertise, not programming skill, is now the scarce resource. The foundation, backed by a new investor, is shifting toward community governance as it works to bring this vision beyond its Dutch roots to the wider AEC industry.
Connect with Maarten on LinkedIn and visit open-aec.com to learn more.
Watch the episode on YouTube.
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