I watch the talks from parleys by Juergen Hoeller, the Spring 2.5 highlights and the road map of Spring 3.0 and the its core revision on 3.0

Core Revisions

• Java 5+ with updated Spring core API

- use of generics and varargs even in the core

• Still be compatible with j2ee 1.4+

- WebSphere 6.1, weblogic 9.2, JBoss 4.2

• Spring expression language

- Unified EL++

• New core container feature

- annotated factory methods


Spring 3 and web space

• Support for updated java web application

-portlet 2.0: resource request, Portlet events

• Preparation for Servlet 3.0
  

- specs to go final by the end of the year

Spring 3.0 Summary

• Spring 3 embraces REST and EL

- full-scale REST support
- broad Unified EL++ support in the core

• Spring 3 will significantly extends and refine annotated web controllers

- RESTful URI mappings
- Portlet 2.0 support

• Spring 3.0 will remain backward compatible with Spring 2.5 on Java 5+
  

Netbeans 6.5 Java EE distribution packages comes with Spring 2.5 support.

• Fully embraces Java 5 & Java EE 5

- as well as Java 6

• Closely integrates AspectJ

- explicit support for load-time weaving

• Embraces configuration annotations

- annotation-driven autowiring and component detection
- annotation-driven MVC controllers
- annotation-driven test context framework