dependencyExcludes/dependencyIncludes should filter on the output dependency versions

[jarmoniuk]

It looks like the options filter on the input dependencies, i.e. dependencies that are already present in the POM. I think they should actually filter on output dependencies (regarding versions).

Question is whether this change should be applied directly or using a new feature toggle (to avoid backwards incompatibilities). Although I expect the current behaviour is not intuitive and direct change would not bring about much harm.

[jarmoniuk]

Looks like I'm confused.

It's already implemented: https://www.mojohaus.org/versions/versions-maven-plugin/display-dependency-updates-mojo.html#ignoredVersions

[jarmoniuk]

Tentatively reopening: the semantics of the feature is unclear and even misleading to most users and it would make much more sense to treat version (and, by extension, the whole filter) as that of the target dependency.

To be decided where to go from here:

• if we changed the meaning of this so that it targets target dependencies, it would pretty much duplicate ruleSet and make ignoredVersions obsolete (which is just a means of providing ruleSet via parameters).

@slawekjaranowski any thoughts?

Or maybe: make the documentation more clean on it and provide examples how to use it, and how to use the ignoredVersions feature to achieve the goal of filtering on target dependencies?

[jarmoniuk]

Made a PR with some documentation changes.