Java: Generate Eclipse Plugins from Maven Jars and local Jars

I am building a suite of applications that will be OSGi based. I am using Eclipse PDE for development. Therefore I want my OSGi bundles to be Eclipse plugins, because it makes things easier in Eclipse. I want to have a single unified way of specifying my dependencies. There are several competing solutions out there, but it seems to me that they all only cover a small part of the problem, and are probably not compatible with each other, so that I cannot just use them together to get a whole solution. The tutorials for the same tools vary wildly, and most of them are only sketchy. My applications can depend on: * Third party jars that are not contained in any repository, and have to be managed manually. * Maven jars * OSGi bundles in an OSGi Bundle Repository (OBR) * Eclipse plugins in P2 To summarize, I want my "source code" projects to all be Eclipse plugins, created within Eclipse PDE, and to only depend on each other, and on other third party Eclipse plugins. Those third party plugins will be generated by one Maven/Eclipse project and put in some repository that can be used by my source code projects. They must all build both under Eclipse PDE and under Maven, using Tycho. How to generate the third party plugins must be stored in a single Maven file. The generated plugins must contain the appropriate dependency information. ## Deliverables In addition to what was in the summary, the following describes more in detail what I want. I want all the dependencies to be turned into Eclipse plugins, which means they are also OSGi bundles. Maven contains dependency information, but that information is not available for "local jars". Also, some Jars, either from Maven or "local", might already be either properly packaged OSGi bundles, or even Eclipse Plugins, as many people put them into Maven instead of OBR/P2. The concrete project for which this will be needed is still in a very early phase. The worker that currently implements it provided the following: *A list of expected dependencies that has been attached as a CSV file called [login to view URL]* The goal of the project is to create a layer on top of 4 databases: two for the server, and two for the client. So, in addition to the core API, there are 4 concrete implementation of that API. Each has different dependencies, but some are common. The worker listed the Maven dependencies, with the project/subproject that requires it. A few are non-Maven jars. There are about 40 listed dependencies. The repository must be available over HTTP, so that client application across the Internet can update themselves. It would be a plus if the access to the repository could be restricted somehow, for example, with a password. The client will be a normal desktop application. My project must be built fully automated using Maven 3 and tycho, but also within Eclipse PDE. So what I want is this: 1) An Eclipse-ready Maven project that: A) Creates a repository of Eclipse Plugins out of my Maven+local Jar dependencies. This will be one single project generating every bundle that will be used by any source-code Eclipse plugin project. Each dependency jar will be packaged as an individual Eclipse plugin, depending on other Eclipse plugins. The Eclipse plugins to be generated will be specified in one big Maven file, which will define every dependency, of any type, *once*. From those definitions, Maven will than build every Eclipse Plugin. As it is likely that some dependencies will not fully (or at all) specify what they depend on, it must be possible to override manually in the Maven file what each Eclipse plugin depends on. B) Put the built plugins in a Repository. C) Make the plugins available to the other "source code" projects in Eclipse, but also available to Maven itself when it builds the "source code" projects. 2) An example of at least every type of dependency in the Maven file: local Jar, Maven (normal-jar), Maven (already-OSGi-enabled), OBR, P2. 3) A sample Eclipse/Maven "source code" project that depends on some such plugins, and itself produces a plugin that is made available to other source code projects. The project must build both in Eclipse and Maven. 4) Another sample Eclipse/Maven "source code" project that depends both on some such plugins, and the previous sample project. It also produces a plugin that is made available to other source code projects. The project must build both in Eclipse and Maven. 5) Documentation specifying how to use the produced code/files to create your own projects. It should be clear enough that I can publish the finished work as an open source project, and other people apart from me can easily download the project and use it, based only on the doc. Everything must work on Windows, and Linux. Ideally also on Mac, but I cannot test it myself currently. I should not need to install any additional plugins in Eclipse to use the finale solution. Try to use pre-existing tools, as far as is possible. The less code you need, the less "maintenance" will be required. The goal is not to create a new Ueber-Maven-Plugin, but to get a working prototype with the least work (and costs). The "source code" projects must only define the dependencies *once*; ideally, that means that the dependency is defined in Eclipse, and Maven use that information when building, so that it doesn't need to be also entered in the project-specific POM file. But it could also work the other way around, if it is simpler. I have left the default disclaimer about "copyright ramifications", because you are expected to use open-source projects to help you, but using those must not make your product in any way "illegal" for me to use, under the condition that I make the whole product itself open-source and available over the Internet.