Major Description
We are currently experimenting with the IVY project as the central dependency management system for our ANT build system. So far we have achieved compile configurations and have used these to construct a dynamic classpath which is fed to the javac task. This works perfectly for compiling projects and we have moved onto the next step of running standalone projects using our ANT system. I know IVY is centered around being a build system, but it is very very close to being a great program launcher. With the ability to define different configurations for projects in the dependency description file (compile, runtime) you can use a runtime configuration to build a dynamic classpath to feed to the java ant task. The only missing piece is incorporating native library folders dynamically in a java.library.path based on the dependent modules used in bulding the classpath.
What I am requesting is the ability to export a path of library directories rather than artifact files. Maybe you could possibly create a "library" element similar to artifact in the publications section and have a different "librarypath" task similar to cachepath to resolve these library folders based on a "library" pattern under the resolvers in the settings file.