Java - An Open Platform of People 
From a technologists perspective, I found it exciting to learn that the JSR proposal for adding closures to Java was formally submitted to the JCP on November 7 2007. I have been watching the closures debate for some time. After seeing Neil Gafter's talk on the proposal at JavaOne 2007, I have been a proponent of the addition to the Java language.
From an open source contributing/lean pull preaching/vendor lock avoiding/everybody play nice singing/tree hugging/apache t-shirt wearing/firefox hat sporting/java user group attending/wake up corporate America shouting :breath: perspective, I found it exciting to learn that the Closures for Java JSR has been jointly submitted from the Belgian and Brazilian Java Users Groups. This is a first for a JSR and will be the first Java language JSR led by individuals outside of Sun Microsystems. The BeJUG announced that the expert group will utilize a publicly-readable mailing list, thus keeping the spirit of openness alive. The fact that Sun will relinquish control as the JSR lead speaks volumes about the attitude and culture that Sun is trying to promote. It also serves as a testament to the power of change management models like the Java Community Process (JCP). I have observed in the past that Sun seemed very heavy handed in steering of JSR proposals; perhaps these recent events are evidence that the Sun culture continues to embrace change and openness.
http://www.javac.info/consensus-closures-jsr.htmlhttp://gafter.blogspot.com/2007/04/consensus-closures-jsr-proposal.htmlhttp://www.bejug.org/confluenceBeJUG/display/BEJUG06/Homehttp://www.soujava.org.br/display/v/Inicial
