Appendix B. OSGi development with Maven 2
Maven 2 is a popular and powerful build tool that spans the whole build lifecycle of a software project: compilation, automated tests, packaging, and deployment. It provides a dependency management system, supports many other tools via its plug-in architecture, and integrates well with continuous integration servers. Maven 2 also offers good support for OSGi-based development, which can then stay close to traditional development in terms of building, as long as you’re aware of the good set of extensions and know to how use them.
Maven 2 is used throughout this book, so this appendix is intended for total Maven 2 beginners who want to test the code samples or adopt the tool for their own OSGi development. It’s also intended for readers already familiar with Maven 2 who want to keep using their favorite build tool for their upcoming OSGi-based development. These people will be happy to discover that the use of OSGi doesn’t need to disrupt their habits and that they’ll be able to use Maven 2 in nearly the same way as before.
Readers totally new to Maven 2 should read this appendix from the beginning. Section B.1 covers how to install the tool, and section B.2 explains all the necessary basics of Maven 2: project creation, the POM file, build lifecycle, dependency management, and multimodule projects. Section B.2 could also be useful for people who want to brush up on their Maven 2 skills or learn some new tips and tricks.