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They are patenting MapReduce. Seems pretty specific to me.

• loup-vaillant 17y ago
  The Idea behind Map Reduce itself is extremely general (and not brand new): map :: (a -> b) -> [a] -> b fold :: (a -> a -> a) -> a -> [a] -> a -- the first argument must be associative if you want a parallel fold. mapReduce :: (a -> b) -> (b -> b -> b) -> b -> [a] -> b mapReduce f g e l = fold g e (map f l) -- conceptually. You have to write an actually parallel version. If the patent isn't more specific than this (by being limited to MapReduce, for instance), I bet it can be overruled by prior art. Now, I admit I don't have the courage to check.
  • neilc 17y ago
    A cursory examination of the patent would tell you that it says very little about map and reduce functions as such -- the emphasis is on the system for executing such functions in parallel for large-scale data transformation.
    • ramchip 17y ago
      the emphasis is on the system for executing such functions in parallel for large-scale data transformation As someone mentioned: the Glasgow Haskell Compiler and its RTS is such a system...