Google pledges not to sue users implementing MapReduce

Google today pledged not to sue any users, distributors or developers who had implemented open-source versions of its MapReduce programming model for processing large data sets, even though these implementations (including, for example, Apache Hadoop) probably infringed upon 10 patents Google held for the technology.

The company's senior patent counsel, Duane Valz wrote in today's announcement that it was meant to ''serve as a model for the industry, and we're encouraging other patent holders to adopt the pledge or a similar initiative.''

The pledge obviously only covered a very small slice of Google's overall patent portfolio, however, it  expected to expand the set of patents and technologies covered by the pledge over time. The company also reserved for itself the right to retaliate if it was attacked first.

In the software industry, patent attacks were sadly, a constant threat and some groups like the Open Invention Network, which counted Google, Red Hat, Sony and IBM among its backers, were trying to make it somewhat easier to ensure that the development of popular open-source products was not held back by patent concerns.

According to Google the ''Open Patent Non-Assertion Pledge'' would serve as a model and believed that similar pledges that its partners and competitors would hopefully take would introduce some much-need transparency, breadth and security to this process.

The development comes after Microsoft's launch of its Patent Tracker tool earlier today, which was a step towards patent transparency, something that had a solid place in the OPN pledge Google had taken.

Says Google: ''We pledge not to sue any user, distributor or developer of open-source software on specified patents, unless first attacked.''

The pledge is expected to extend to additional patents with time, but says that the OPN (or a similar alternative) was something it encouraged other companies to take as well. It said, by doing so companies would be promoting a few advantages and helping to reduce the number of patent-related lawsuits.

The advantages of the pledge, according to  Google, included transparency, making it easier for developers and such to ascertain patent rights. There was also another listed advantage –breadth, which eliminated the limitations a specific open source license/project would present.

The OPN pledge was also said to be a form of defensive protection, with Google only using it for defensive purposes. Also finally, there was durability, with the pledge being in place for as long as the patent existed.