Why is the <packaging> element included

Question

When I navigate to - http://search.maven.org/#artifactdetails%7Corg.apache.portals.pluto%7Cpluto-container-api%7C2.0.2%7Cbundle

the dependency is -

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.portals.pluto</groupId>
    <artifactId>pluto-container-api</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.2</version>
    <packaging>bundle</packaging>
</dependency>

Should it not be -

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.portals.pluto</groupId>
    <artifactId>pluto-container-api</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.2</version>
</dependency>

As including the tag seems to cause an error, attached -

Answer 1

It seems like a fair assumption that the XML you quote is intended to be copied and pasted into a pom.xml.

You're right. Removing <packaging> is the correct thing to do.

There's no need to specify the type, because the bundles artifacts have a 'jar' extension anyway. Even if the packaging was not 'jar' ‒say, for example, it was 'war'‒ the correct element to use would be <type> and not <packaging>.

Answer 2

The artifact was build using the maven-bundle-plugin to enable the artifact to be used in OSGi environments (can be seen in the parent pom of this bundle). This plugin introduces the 'bundle' packaging type.

As the artifact is still a 'jar' you can skip specifying the <type> in your dependency section (The presented <dependency> section of the repository web interface you mentioned is wrong. There is no <packaging> element inside <dependency>. <packaging> is one of the maven coordinates).