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USPTO Grants Google a Patent On MapReduce
theodp writes "Two years ago, David DeWitt and Michael Stonebraker deemed MapReduce a major step backwards (here are the original paper and a defense of it) that 'represents a specific implementation of well known techniques developed nearly 25 years ago.' A year later, the pair teamed up with other academics and eBay to slam MapReduce again. But the very public complaints didn't stop Google from demanding a patent for MapReduce; nor did it stop the USPTO from granting Google's request (after four rejections). On Tuesday, the USPTO issued U.S. Patent No. 7,650,331 to Google for inventing Efficient Large-Scale Data Processing."
Isn't that awful? I can't understand why they did it.
Moving stuff on web pages sucks. Especially on that web page.
The bad thing isn't the fade in itself. It's that Google used to be run by people who knew what sucked and what didn't. Now it seems like there are people who don't know in positions to call some shots. It's a bad omen.
They're probably about 10 years away from their own version of Microsoft's "Bob".
Does this endanger the Hadoop project, or projects using Hadoop? Its MapReduce implementation is a rather crucial part.
"A technique that is well known, such as MapReduce, is the property of the general public and is unpatentable."
Someone should really let the patent clerks in on that secret...
There's a 68.71% chance you're right.