So yes, you'll want (a) good tests and (b) patches for e.g. the USB3.0 implementation. (I realize that's not how it works for hardware, so it's an analogy). What you don't want is a new release that may change X things because you hit a bug in one specific contract.
The JSR reference is interesting, I wasn't aware of it. How well does it work, and what are the problems with it? I assume it gets complex in cases.
It works OK. It doesn't get too complicated because spec versions are updated only once every couple of years. So far, the standardized specs (JSRs) approach has worked quite well. Every standard (and there are a lot of them[1]) that is ever complete (many don't) usually has at least three implementations, so often there's plenty of choice.
The JSR reference is interesting, I wasn't aware of it. How well does it work, and what are the problems with it? I assume it gets complex in cases.