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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 JavaScript?
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JavaScript's open source stance is also one of the best. Contrary to popular belief, JavaScript is not a project, but a specification with an open standard where the language is evolved and maintained by its core team. ECMAScript, another fancy name of JavaScript, is not open source, but it too has an open standard.
JavaScript is free to use for everyone.
From a technical standpoint, most modern JavaScript interpreters actually use a technique called just-in-time compiling to improve performance; the JavaScript source code gets compiled into a faster, binary format while the script is being used, so that it can be run as quickly as possible.
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.
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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.
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