I've finished the initial work on this, and "resolved" https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/UIMA-2568. Most of the real work was done earlier by Peter and friends; my work was mostly some slight repackaging and cleanups. The documentation is mainly in http://uima.apache.org/eclipse-update-site .
It needs Tycho testing :-). Yet to be done: The design now rebuilds the entire update site (including all previously released versions of the plugins). To make this efficient, the "slow" parts of the build - which is the pack200 optimization of the jars, ought to be done once, and the pack.gz files saved, probably as part of the build process for plugins. Another thing that ought to be done once and reused is all the signing of the existing jars for re-used features/plugins. Once we get set up with the new distribution svn, we may be able to use that as part of more automation. These can be a follow-on Jiras, I think. -Marshall
