Literal notation utilised by JSON was indeed a part of Javascript, however JSON was a subset of Javascript specifically selected for cross-language messaging; by necessity pruning the parts of literal Javascript unsuited for this purpose and in part conforming to identical literals in other languages (see http://www.json.org/fatfree.html). It's unclear how without the limits set by the JSON spec that literal Javascript would have become a popular exchange format.
It took Crockford's Rebol-influenced eye to spot the potential for a minimalist though somewhat expressive exchange format based on elementary block structures, and near-genius to carve it out of the spartan confines of the Javascript syntactic swamps. Sadly not being Rebol, JSON does not include words (see 'Reserved Words' http://javascript.crockford.com/survey.html), dates, urls, email addresses (see http://www.rebol.com/rebolsteps.html); and will forever be burdened with comma-delimiters.
JSON also does not permit comments, which makes it unsuitable for many applications such as handwritten configuration files. :-/ It would be tempting to use JSON for such things, but it requires too much markup...and without comments it's pretty dead in the water. Things like YAML have been succeeding in this space instead...much to the annoyance of Rebol advocates.
But there is some potential for copying the successful aspects of these formats, while bringing back that Rebol flair with REN (REadable Notation):
It took Crockford's Rebol-influenced eye to spot the potential for a minimalist though somewhat expressive exchange format based on elementary block structures, and near-genius to carve it out of the spartan confines of the Javascript syntactic swamps. Sadly not being Rebol, JSON does not include words (see 'Reserved Words' http://javascript.crockford.com/survey.html), dates, urls, email addresses (see http://www.rebol.com/rebolsteps.html); and will forever be burdened with comma-delimiters.