Yes - maven is what runs everything for the email-ext plugin. Searching
found me a couple posts about the same error - and it was a class path
setup problem with multiple bundled versions of JUnit.
https://github.com/KentBeck/junit/issues/350,
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/infinitest-users/5FQ1Z8wwPjI.
Ugh, maybe there's a hidden junit.jar somewhere. The MethodRule is
deprecated as of JUnit 4.7 - but somehow the JenkinsRule is failing the
validation in
org.junit.runners.BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.validateRuleField(BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.java:181)
179 private void validateRuleField(Field field, List<Throwable>
errors) {
180 if
(!MethodRule.class.isAssignableFrom(field.getType())) 181
errors.add(new Exception("Field " + field.getName()
182 + " must implement
MethodRule"));
183 if (!Modifier.isPublic(field.getModifiers()))
184 errors.add(new Exception("Field " +
field.getName()
185 + " must be public"));
186 }