What is Java?

Java is an object-oriented programming language developed by Sun Microsystems in the early 1990s. Java applications are compiled to bytecode, which at runtime is either interpreted or compiled to native machine code for execution.

The language itself derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities. JavaScript, a scripting language, shares a similar name and has similar syntax, but is not directly related to Java.

Sun Microsystems provides a GNU General Public License implementation of a Java compiler and Java virtual machine, in compliance with the specifications of the Java Community Process, although the class library that is required to run Java programs is not free software yet.