Github user mjsax commented on the pull request:
https://github.com/apache/flink/pull/880#issuecomment-118020199
From my understanding, "provided" would mean that a project that uses stuff
from flink-contrib would not need to include the code from flink-contrib into
the own program jar because flink-contrib code is provided automatically at
runtime (ie, is included in flink-dist).
However, Flink follows the opposite approach. "The flink-contrib folder is
assumed to be provided by the user" means, that flink-contrib stuff is **not**
included in flink-dist, thus, if flink-contrib stuff is use, the program must
be contained in a fat-jar that includes flink-contrib classes.
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