The conversation following my recent article has focused heavily on licensing.
That is understandable.
But licensing is not the central issue.
The central issue is alignment.
Do our documentation structures align with how buildings are designed?
MASTERFORMAT® organizes documentation by work results:
This structure is effective for:
But it requires identifying products early in order to assign section numbers.
System-based documentation, such as that structured under ASTM E1557, organizes by assemblies:
Within those, systems are defined by performance.
An exterior wall is described as one integrated system — not fragmented across multiple sections.
This allows:
Design teams work in BIM environments. Assemblies are modeled as systems. Energy analysis evaluates envelope performance holistically. Owners demand lifecycle performance.
Yet our specification structures still assume product and trade silos.
There is a structural misalignment between how we model buildings and how we document them.
The cost is not licensing.
The cost is:
These are hidden costs.
They exceed licensing fees by orders of magnitude.
This is not an argument to eliminate MASTERFORMAT® entirely.
A practical approach may be:
That sequence aligns documentation with design progression.
The current licensing controversy may fade.
But the underlying question will remain:
Are we organizing information for how buildings are constructed —
or for how they are conceived, evaluated, and defended?
If we want fewer RFIs, fewer VE proposals, and clearer accountability, we must make design intent explicit at the system level.
The structure we choose either clarifies intent — or obscures it.
That is the real debate.