regarding the recent classpath/versioned jars/dependencies discussion:
the jakarta apache project is working on a solution to this, a CPAN-like system for java called JJAR. they have a simple working prototype. it is still in the early stages of development. since debian folk are probably the world's foremost experts in version/dependency systems, you could probably give some valuable feedback.
it would be great if the debian solution to this problem dovetailed nicely with the jakarta solution, especially given jakarta's influence in the java community at large. it would be a shame to make debian java developers deploy their packages on two incompatible systems at some point in the future.
http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs/jakarta-commons-sandbox/jjar/README.txt?rev=1.3&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup
