What is needed is to modify the packaging
of some of the existing packages (log4j, commons-codec, etc) to include their
pom's as described in http://wiki.debian.org/Java/MavenRepoHelper

The list of packages that need work is currently:
|| package || owner ||
|| log4j || - ||
|| libcommons-attributes-java || - ||
|| libcommons-codec-java || - ||
|| libcommons-dbcp-java || - ||
|| libcommons-digester-java || - ||
|| libcommons-jxpath-java || - ||
|| commons-math || - ||
|| liblogkit-java || - ||
... and many others.

Add yourself as the owner in this page to avoid duplicating work.

To get started, you need some preparation:

First, add https://launchpad.net/~ludovicc/+archive/ppa/ to your sources.list, then
{{{
sudo apt-get refresh
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install maven-ant-helper maven-repo-helper
}}}

I have a collection of Bash scripts which I use a lot to simplify packaging. Install them in ~/Projects/bash-scripts for example, and add them to your ~/.bashrc
  1. bzr branch lp:~ludovicc/maven-packaging-support/bash-scripts ~/Projects/bash-scripts
  1. Add to ~/.bashrc at least the following
{{{
export PATH="${PATH}":~/Projects/bash-scripts
source dev-utils
source pkg-utils
}}}

Get the sources for the packages you want to work on. Use either
  1. apt-get sources libmypackage-java
  1. svn checkout http://svn.debian.org/svn/pkg-java/

Copy those sources onto your working folder. You will want also to keep track of changes with Bazaar, and publish them in your Launchpad account. I'm using a neat trick (http://code.mumak.net/2008/07/cool-launchpadbazaar-hack.html) to make the process simple when you're managing lots of small projects.

I have the following organization:

  ~/Projects/onLaunchpad/uj/
This folder contains all the projects which are published under the uj (Ubuntu Java project) on Launchpad.

In ~/.bazaar/locations.conf, I have
{{{
[/home/ludo/Projects/onLaunchpad]
push_location = lp:~ludovicc/
push_location:policy = appendpath
public_branch = lp:~ludovicc/
public_branch:policy = appendpath
}}}

It is then possible to do something like:
{{{
cd ~/Projects/onLaunchpad/uj/
mkdir test
cd test
bzr init
touch test.txt
bzr add .
bzr commit -m "* Initial"
bzr push
}}}

The push command will create automatically a new branch on Launchpad under the uj project. Really cool!

Now that the setup is done, we can enhance the existing packages to include Maven metadata:
 1. Copy the project under the uj/ folder
 1. Run the following commands 
{{{
# remove the svn information if the project was copied from svn
find . -name ".svn" -print | xargs rm -r
# remove the quilt information found in some projects
rm -rf .pc
bzr init
bzr add
pkg-bzr-init-merge
bzr commit -m "* Initial"
uscan --report --verbose
}}}

Use this command to increment the Debian version of the package in changelog:
  dch -i
Append to the ubuntu version the ppa version, and use jaunty, for example you should have
  ant (1.7.1-0ubuntu3~ppa3) jaunty; urgency=low

or if uscan reports a new upstream version, try to package it:
  dch --newVersion=${upstream_version}-0ubuntu1~ppa1

Keep track of all changes done for the packaging in the changelog file.

Edit debian/control, and change the following:
- change the section to java, this is to comply with the new Debian rules
  Section: java
- update the standards version field
  Standards-Version: 3.8.1
- on all Depends: fields, add 
  Depends: ${misc:Depends}

Execute those commands
{{{
pkg-get-orig-source
bzr bd-do
mh_genrules 
exit
}}}

Add to debian/rules, or merge debian/rules.new into debian/rules:
	binary-post-install/lib$(PACKAGE)-java::
	    mh_installpoms -plib$(PACKAGE)-java
	    mh_installjar -plib$(PACKAGE)-java pom.xml build/$(PACKAGE)-*.jar usr/share/java/$(PACKAGE).jar usr/share/java/$(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION).jar

Add to changelog:
(if you packaged a new version)
  * New upstream version, add myself to Uploaders
(if you did those changes)
  * Change section to java, bump up Standards-Version to 3.8.1
(if debhelper was 4 or less)
  * Bump up debhelper to 6
  * Add the Maven POM to the package
  * Add a Build-Depends-Indep dependency on maven-repo-helper
  * Use mh_installpom and mh_installjar to install the POM and the jar to the
    Maven repository
(if you did those changes)
  * Remove the patch for the POM as it's no longer needed, as well as
    the dependency on Quilt
(if you did those changes, check packages.qa.debian.org to see if a bug is opened against the package)
  * Change the build dependency on java-gcj to default-jdk (Closes: #xxxx)
(if you did those changes)
  * Add ${misc:Depends} to Depends to clear Lintian warnings  
(if you did those changes)
  * Remove Depends on Java runtimes as it is a library

Execute those commands:
{{{
rm debian/rules.new
bzr add debian
bzr commit -m "* Added POM support"
b
sudo debi
pkg-upload
bzr push
# once you are happy that the package is ready to be deployed on your PPA
pkg-release
}}}