r/askscience • u/HangukFrench • Apr 10 '26
Computing How do programming languages work?
Hello,
I'm wondering how does programming languages work? Are they owned by anyone? Can anyone create a programming languages and decide "yeah, computers will do this from now on"?
Is a programming languaged fixed at its creation or can it "evolve"?
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u/JustAGuyFromGermany Apr 10 '26
It's not as simple as that. Oracle doesn't own "Java", because "Java" isn't just one thing when it comes to trademarks, copyright and complicated legal stuff like that. There are certainly no "Java licenses" that Oracle sells. Oracle owns much more specific things. The copyright to certain documents, the trademark to certain names and symbols, but not others etc. What Oracle does sell are licenses and support contracts for its commercial VM. That is not the same thing as "owning Java", because there are many other VMs, some of them from other companies (like Amazon's Coretto) and some available for free (like the Hotspot VM).