I like code reuse rather than having to write and maintain our own work. That's a big pull of open source is building from what others have done. I vote for including the libraries in derby.jar, rather than having jar-file explosion.
The reuse aspect is really why I want to explore this. Re-implementing everything in Derby may be OK for simple stuff like command line parsing but will be problematic for more complex things like JMX.
The open community aspect should not be underestimated - a project that refuses to even consider other open source solutions will very rapidly become isolated.
I would not recommend bundling things inside derby.jar as that leads to classes being loaded from unexpected places (e.g. I would not expect org.apache.commons.cli.Something to come from derby.jar).
One concern is making sure we include third-party stuff with compatible licensing. What is the process for making we don't get into some legal tangle?
The ASF has strict policies on what can be used by ASF projects to ensure that the final distribution is compatible with the Apache License. This basically comes down to only being able to use other software if its license is no more restrictive than the Apache License.
-- Jeremy
