Is JavaScript an open source project?

While I know that it was created by Brendan Eich at Netscape, is JavaScript an open source project? If not, who owns the source code?

Also, what compiled language was used to develop JavaS开发者_开发问答cript?

JavaScript is not a "project".

Rather, there is the 'specification' of the language (the ECMAScript standard), and then there are many 'implementations' of that standard. These are generally quite separate projects made by separate people. Many popular programming languages are developed in a similar way, having a variety of implementations of a single standard.

It's possible that a language may have an open source implementation, but the standard may not be "open" -- it's changes may be controlled by a single corporate entity for its profit. Or, the standard may be "open" and developed collaboratively, but there may be only one implementation which is not open source, or, the only "good" implementations may be proprietary.

JavaScript, in particular, is an implementation of the ECMAScript language standard and is primarily used in the form of client-side JavaScript, implemented as part of a web browser in order to provide enhanced user interfaces and dynamic websites. This enables programmatic access to computational objects within a host environment.

Because of its open standard, ECMAScript is open but not open source. (A language standard can not be open-source -- it is not a program, it is a document describing the expected behavior of a program -- but an implementation of it can be.)

For example, the V8 engine, which is what Google Chrome uses is available, and so is the SpiderMonkey source code, which is used in Mozilla Firefox. There are more JavaScript engines, if you're interested.

Javascript is a language. There are many different engines that interpret javascript, and each would be subject to its own license agreement.

More about different engines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript_engine

First JavaScript engine: SpiderMonkey is written in C++ and is an open source project maintained by Mozilla Foundation.

JavaScript is programming language initially developed by a company called Netscape. It is standardised under the name of ECMAScript http://www.ecmascript.org. This deviation in name is owing to disagreements between different companies over what to call it at the time that it became standardised.

There are various "engines" that interpret JavaScript when it is run in a browser. Some of these are open source (for example "Rhino" used in Firefox or "V8" used in Chrome).

However, the question of whether JavaScript itself is open source is a little off the mark. "Open source" refers to programs, whereas JavaScript is a programming language. It is an open standard, which is a close approximation in some ways - at least in the sense that it is not a "propriety" language that is owned and controlled by one company.

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Update: I suppose the answer to your question is that, because JS is an open standard, there are lots of implementations of it, including open source ones. These implementations are in all kinds of compiled languages and even some non-compiled ones.

JavaScript has a language specification: ECMAScript that can and does have various implementations, open or closed source. I don't believe implementation of the language is encumbered by anything like patents, but I could be wrong.

Yes, most engines that run javascript are open sources:

Google has developped V8, a javascript engine and here is its sourcecode (in C++)

and here is the list of most javascript engines