Some of the geospatial industry's most resilient and impactful standards were created as a product of collaboration between open source software tools.
Some of the geospatial industry's most resilient and impactful standards were created as a product of collaboration between open source software tools. GeoJSON, LASzip, PostGIS function names, Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF, ZYX tile arrangements, and Cloud Optimized Point Cloud all evolved to enable open source tools succeed at their niche while allowing interoperability of data and software to benefit their users. Unlike standards-body driven testbeds, industry imposed "standards" from dominant commercial software stacks, or tone-deaf efforts from industry-external participants, guerrilla geospatial standards have provided wider software reach, greater impact, and better interoperability. Typical standards development activities often have a blind spot to the collaborative circle of data, software, and specification that open source software must have to thrive beyond a single project. We will discuss a little bit of history of some of these efforts, describe the conditions that warrant development of a guerilla standard, and take a victory lap for an under appreciated aspect of open source software's impact on the geospatial software industry.