I agree, this is a good idea. Lets have the default value for the flag be "mandatory", i.e you only include the flag when it is optional. We can presumably do the same with ejb-refs from web apps to ejbs? I don't think we can have dependencies between ejbs since there can be circular references.
CMP EJBs will also have dependencies for the CMRs between them (as well as the dependency on the CMP data store which will not be an ejb-ref). I agree that resolving those will be problematic.
Perhaps the compromise is to bundle the dependencies at the EJBModule level rather than at the individual EJB level - this would mirror the model at the web layer where they are define for the WebApplication not individual servlets.
In other words, an ejb-ref from a WebApplication would depend on the EJBModule that contained the target EJB not the individual EJB. Similarly, individual EJB's ejb-refs would be rolled up into dependencies from their EJBModule to the EJBModules of the targets.
-- Jeremy
