Disclaimer The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.
Over on David Roe’s Blog "Content on Content Management" he has recently posted a pretty good article on the newly added Content Server JCR Repository Adapter. I really liked his post because he presents this with a curious but wary attitude and then goes on to present some of the history of the process and the political landscape this "standard" traversed to get to where it is today.
Why was his general attitude important? Well, he did not just jump right up and say "Hey, look what got published, go use it now because it is simply the best." He begins to present pros and cons about his personal feelings on JSR/JCR process and how vendors can use this as part of their sales pitch and why that is almost comical. Finally, because he presents it with a bit of caution I am a lot more apt to take it seriously.
Why is the history important? Sometimes history is not all that important but sometimes that political/historical take can give you insight into standards that were driven by an agenda that may not be in the best interests of the community as a whole. As an example, look at Microsoft and their OOXML standard. If someone told you OOXML was a standard and you blindly followed it you may wish you had known the back story of that all along, especially if the standards ratification ends up getting overturned later.
To wrap up: great presentation, great insight. Oh, and the topic was interesting too!