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That is "don't be evil" demonstrated. Google could have kept GFS and MapReduce strictly confidential (no paper published, merely a patent) and sue those who implemented anything similar.

Microsoft had at one point used Hadoop and HBase (via the Powerset acquisition), they've also made their own MapReduce (Dryad) and Sawzall (DryadLinq) equivalents. It's admirable that Google resisted the temptation to patent-troll them (not that patent trolling has any actual benefit, it just sounds like a typical "evil big corporation" thing to do).



If Google were to sue Microsoft (or anyone else, for that matter) over their patent, they would not be patent-trolling, by definition.

Patent trolling is when some entity that does not practice the patent acquires it and uses it against others.


Dryad is not MapReduce. M/R is just a very simple case of what Dryad can do. But Dryad is not available for serious use outside Microsoft. Also Google only got implementation patent, it's only applicable to Hadoop, which is a Java-based clean room implementation of Google's M/R.

Zvi


> Dryad is not MapReduce. M/R is just a very simple case of what Dryad can do.

That's irrelevant ... if it touches on the claims of the Map-Reduce patent, then it infringes.

Being a company that releases stuff in the open sure is a disadvantage.




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