The c-builds set of plugins listed on the project's homepage are used to make packaging of software a formal part of software release. The idea is to take the extra step of packaging software in the development lifecycle so that handoff to software distribution tools like YUM are more natural. The plugins currently implement RPM as the target package format but it is conceivable to add other pkg managers as well. Conary would be an interesting variant.
The plugins are not java specific. They are used to develop non-java projects or package java or non-java software that your project is dependent upon and store those dependencies in a maven repository. This allows you to build a repository of dependencies and then develop software with maven so that maven will manage those dependencies.
There are currently 5 main use cases and associated development lifecycles codified in maven which are being developed. The best usage reference is the integration tests as those run.
This is a prepartory activity which does not require any C-BUILDS plugins. Set up your organizations maven repo which you will deploy into and setup your repository credentials into your ~/.m2/settings.xml configuration. Write poms for each remote project that you are depenent upon and write a pom such as this one and "mvn deploy" it...
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>com.myco.code.stbs</groupId>
<artifactId>expat</artifactId>
<version>1.95.8</version>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
<artifactId>wagon-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.0-beta-5</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>download-stb</id>
<phase>initialize</phase>
<goals>
<goal>download-single</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<!-- get from gentoo mirror since several sourcefourge mirror's http config breaks wagon -->
<url>http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/gentoo/distfiles</url>
<fromFile>${project.artifactId}-${project.version}.tar.gz</fromFile>
<toDir>${project.build.directory}</toDir>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
<artifactId>build-helper-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>attach-artifacts</id>
<phase>package</phase>
<goals>
<goal>attach-artifact</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<artifacts>
<artifact>
<file>${project.build.directory}/${project.artifactId}-${project.version}.tar.gz</file>
<type>tar.gz</type>
</artifact>
</artifacts>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
</project>
Use maven to automate your project with autoconf managing the build phase. The project release artifact will be a tarball of source code. Packaging into RPM is intended to be a separate project.