A year later I wanted to update this: I no longer have this opinion about the Maven community. I would not write this answer if the question were asked today. I'm going to add my current opinion as a separate answer.
This is a very subjective answer, but the question is about opinions, so ...
I like Maven, and am liking it better the more I get to know it. One thing affecting my feelings about it, however: the maven community is largely centered around Sonatype ("the maven company", it's where many of the Maven honchos are working), and Sonatype is pushing its corporate products pretty aggressively on the community.
An example: The "Maven Book" twitter stream links to a supposed introduction to repository management.
Sorry, but that "intro" is half-information, half sales pitch for Nexus. Pop quiz: are there any other repo managers besides Nexus and Nexus Pro? Also, what does that have to do with the supposedly open-sourced Maven Book? Oh, right, the chapter on repository management has been spun off into a separate book ... about Nexus. Huh. If I contribute to the Maven book, do I get a referral fee if I cause an increase in Nexus sales?
Imagine if you were participating in a Java development forum and it was clear that the Sun employees discussing Java were going to seize every possible opportunity to talk about NetBeans and "NetBeans Pro". After a while, it loses some of its community feeling. I never had an experience like that with Ant.
Having said all of that, I do think that Maven is a very interesting and useful system (I'm not calling it a tool, like Ant is, Maven is broader than that) for software development configuration and build management. The dependency management is a blessing and a curse at times, but it's refreshing -- and certainly not the only advantage Maven offers. I'm probably reacting a bit too strongly to the Sonatype shilling, but it hurts Maven by association, in my opinion. I don't know if this opinion is shared by anyone else.
