The only JSR that matter is JavaSE and I don't see it having technical problems. JavaME is dying and Spring showed JavaEE how things should be done so they are catching up now.
Honestly, as someone who has no interest in Microsoft technologies and distrusts Mono, but who likes the idea of a batteries-included, CTO-friendly, cross-platform, JIT-compiling VM with a huge userbase and oodles of libraries, I am feeling a little lost now. Not that Java is going to die quickly -- I'm still learning Scala and expect that to be a good investment for a few years to come -- but it's starting to look like Java is a platform with a lot less future than I expected.
First let me disclaimer that this is totally my perspective on the subject but as a decision maker in a company that is now looking to move on and believes that this is the fatal shot to Java, I wanted to say that for us we feel that with the JVM shenanigans that any technology that runs on the JVM is in danger of Oracle's legal reach. After kicking this one around a lot among our peers we are hopeful that a language that run on the LLVM makes it to the forefront as a replacement.
It's very hard to get momentum behind a free software project on .NET, and once you do Microsoft and their shill army kills it by reinvention, heavy promotion of their vaporware, and badmouthing the competition.
It's really hard to work against the culture, and the dominant .NET culture sees Redmond as the One True Source for anything worth using.
I don't know what you mean by that. Just have a look at what JSRs JDK 7 consists of:
http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk7/features/
Now imagine some of Apaches representatives were spec leads on some JSRs. Thats a serious threat to a JSR then. Spec leads are not easy to find. Participators in a JSR can go with important knowledge on the topic, too.