The top two posts on TheServerSide are:
AspectJ and AspectWerkz Merge Forces
JDO 2.0 Public Review Ballot
These give a glimpse at the good and the bad side of the Java community.
On the 'good' side we have the AOP news. Here we have two communities coming together for the greater good of the overall community. There isn't the politics, nor the egos of "my app is better than yours". They got together and talked about how they could work together and end up with a merger which is going to change AOP forever.
On the 'bad' side we have the JDO 2.0 ballot news. Here we have politics getting in the way. There are JDO users who are desperate to get JDO 2.0 implementations into their hands. They need it to take care of their business. Take a look at the vendors who went against the spec, and those who are for it.
I was optimistic, yet worried at the same time, about the EJB 3 / JDO 2 news that came out. It appears that some people are using that news as a way to hold back the JDO 2 spec. A lot of people have spent a LOT of time on that work, and our users deserve it right now.
P.s. I really liked Aslak's quote regarding the AOP merger:
Forking seems to be more common than merging in the OSS world. This is great news. I wish you good luck.