A nuanced discussion of software patents, this time one filed by (and granted to) Google.<div><br></div><div><a href="http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/01/googles-mapreduce-patent-what-does-it-mean-for-hadoop.ars">http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/01/googles-mapreduce-patent-what-does-it-mean-for-hadoop.ars</a></div>

<div><br></div><div>Hadoop is the open-source implementation of the MapReduce algorithms.</div><div><br></div><div>I have mixed feelings on this one:</div><div><br></div><div>- on one hand, &quot;map&quot; and &quot;reduce&quot; are as old as &quot;divide&quot; and &quot;conquer&quot; strategies in computer science. No one should be able to patent this.</div>

<div><br></div><div>- on the other hand, Google&#39;s 2004 paper on MapReduce was a seminal event that unleashed the map-reduce pattern on a scale not seen before and enabled many open-source implementations (Hadoop being the most prominent).</div>

<div><br></div><div>Saidi</div>