Are Open Source tools worth the price?: No, this isn't FUD from someone trying to scare you away from using any open source project. The roots are in a blog entry that asks how you decide when an open source tool is worth the price. » Read more

Point, Click, and Drool!: Joshua rebukes this too common belief among programmers. — Joshua Marinacci

"Java Desktop System"?: Why was the name "Java Desktop System" selected by Sun for their Linux distribution? Didn't they learn anything from their JavaScript Waterloo? — John D. Mitchell

SQLTags
As Sue Spielman wrote in Practical JSTL, "The JSTL includes a number of actions that provide a mechanism for interacting with databases." She also points out that this is a violation of MVC. If you are willing to cross that line, SQLTags is an open source project that "builds a custom JSP tag for every table in your relational database." Developer Steven Olson writes " there is a significant class of JSP development that requires database access but does not require pure MVC separation"

Complete the MVC Puzzle with Struts
Sam Dalton provides a nice introduction to MVC Model 2 in his sitepoint article Complete the MVC Puzzle with Struts. He provides a simple example consisting of a pair of JSP pages, a servlet, and a Java Bean. Dalton then introduces Struts. Although the article is full of code, he provides context that should assist those new to struts. For example, he writes, "It might seem as though ActionForms represent the Model of our application, but, in actual fact, they should be considered part of the controller part of the application. Although ActionForm beans can represent the properties of our model, they contain no persistence logic, nor any business logic. ActionForms are used to pass Model information between the Model and the View."