Converting plain JARs to Java modules

[Glyn Normington]

One of the issues any new module system faces is reusing existing JARs. OSGi has tools like bnd and bundler to add OSGi metadata to a JAR with sensible defaults.

I was wondering if the Java module system will be capable of having tools that automatically convert Jars to Java modules. I think this will be important if we want to be able to depend on existing JARs in a modular way.

One specific issue is that since Java modules express their dependencies on other Java modules rather than packages, it is not possible to infer these dependencies by analysing the byte code of a JAR. Has any thought been given to allowing Java modules to express dependencies on packages rather than on other Java modules?

Regards,
Glyn