[OT:] tools/methods for automated cross-platform packaging?

[Christopher J. Ruwe]

Currently, I am looking into the problem of providing software packages
for different platforms via native packages in a Continuous
Integration Environment. The software in question is pure Java, so
binary compatibility and/or cross-compilation issue resolves to having a
conforming JRE installed on the target-platform.

I know this question is prone for another OSI-10 flame-war on the "Java
is the OS" statement - please don't. It is a customer requirement I must
conform to. The (non-)intelligence of that requirement might be
questioned, but ...

Having looked into the issue of cross-platform packaging systems, I have
found mostly separate package managers which require to be installed on
the target-platform and manage a separate environment (viz OpenPkg,
IPS). These do not help, as the customers require native packages.

Apparantly, there are tools which take compiled binaries and wrap those
into some package-format - EPM and ProjectBuilder do such a thing. The
first has it's last commit by December 2010 and the second seems to be a
one-man-show, so those (I did not find alternatives) are of questionable
value in a long-term productive environment.

Other projects manage to provide packages for a multitude of
platforms. Are these built (semi-)manually by volunteers or distribution
providers or is there any packaging infrastructure available to automate
the task of taking sources to compile and package them? As I am talking
of Java, a tool which packages binaries would be entirely sufficient.

Thanks for any ideas or hints, cheers,
-- 
Christopher J. Ruwe
TZ: GMT + 2h
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 834 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/attachments/20120823/c70f9801/signature.pgp