I dont think this is new. C and C++ came from Bell Labs, for example. Cobol from the USA government, FORTRAN from IBM. Java from sun, javascript from netscape

I dont think this is new. C and C++ came from Bell Labs, for example. Cobol from the USA government, FORTRAN from IBM. Java from sun, javascript from netscape. In general, they all had a big institution. I presume these provided a a few ingredients, like * A strong urge to solve a real-world problem * A cradle, where smart people had time and resources to build a basic core * A broadcast platform as others would look up to the institution, and notice what they were doing From the top of my head, perl and python don't fit in this pattern, so its not universal, but I would dare to call it common.