For JavaOne '04 I submitted 0 proposals and presented in 2 sessions. JavaOne '05 I submitted three proposals and will be presenting 0 of them. At least I am in good company. One of them lasted until this morning, so it must have at least been in the running. Interestingly, the one that lasted the longest was probably the least important or relevant, although it was also on the least politically sensitive subject.
Which one do you think lasted the longest, (1) understanding the business side of open source (risks, maximizing investments, hr considerations -- presented as a business case and in terms of business concerns more than technical (we've all seen the technical side until we've turned blue)), (2) making informed decisions about approaches to relational persistence (promising to even examine where EJB 2.1 entity beans are the best choice!), or (3) practical applications of rules engines (from short case studies)?
(1) risked wandering afield from Java, so that being turned down wasn't a big surprise. (2) is way too touchy a topic right now, especially as I can be perceived as being partisan (I am on the JDO 2.0 expert group (but that is because I was convinced to do so after spending a few beers arguing with Dion about why I really disliked JDO 1.0)), (3) is a growing technology which is becoming much more prevalent and, like AOP, is exceptionally powerful both conceptually and in practice, but which most people don't know how to use in reasonable ways (yet!).
That said, I'm not especially bothered by this. Sure, you want your proposal accepted as an ego thing, but really that was about it for me and JavaOne. I care about the subjects I proposed to talk about, quite a bit, but the type of talk you do for JavaOne is not nearly as interesting as the type of talk you do for other conferences. The size of each session, even the BOF's, is too big to get any kind of real interaction going, and the mix of attendees makes it really tough to do anything but a very general or lightweight treatment of a topic. The tradeoff is that you can reach a larger audience, and a more varied audience in one go -- the same as the drawbacks. I like meaty technical things, myself, which is tough in that setting.
ApacheCon Europe is a whole other story, though. I care about that conference =)