Thanks for setting up the blog.
Regarding "Outlook, goals and request for help", I'm interested in helping out. I've been trying to get involved for a while, but to be honest, I'm finding the learning curve rather steep. Some blog posts covering how to get started and how to tackle some of the problems that crop up when packaging anything non-trivial would be really helpful.
(For a bit of background, I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone who wants to run various bits of "enterprise middleware" on Debian rather than someone who is a Java developer. Examples of the applications I'd like to help package are Shibboleth IdP [0], Grouper [1], Syncope [2] and their dependencies. I have a fair bit of experience packaging Perl modules for Debian[3] despite not being a Perl programmer either, and I generally prefer going off and doing my own research/pouring through source code before bothering others for help. However, I've yet to manage to get any Java libraries into Debian. I'm not yet a Debian Developer, but I am in the process of applying[4].)
Re goals, the Perl Packaging team make use of Debian's Continuing Integration[5]. Given that, as I understand it, Java applications packaged for Debian make use of the versions of libraries that have been packaged for Debian rather than the precise version specified in the POM file (or equivalent), I would have thought this would be something you'd also want to adopt?
Christopher