We could add jsf and jsp folders to the binary bundle which just contain the sample parent poms (might be easiest). I am still trying a few other things, but no success so far.

Not sure if I have this right so I'll just summarize what I see as the problem here and someone can correct me where I go off the path....

• The various pom.xml files under samples/ rely on parent poms in directories that are not directly in their heirarchy. That is:

jsf/pom.xml
jsp/pom.xml

samples/jsfsample/pom.xml (relies on parent ../../jsf/pom.xml)
samples/jspsample/pom.xml (relies on parent ../../jsp/pom.xml)

• The jsf/pom.xml and jsp/pom.xml have very little to do in the directories that they are currently in. There are no child poms under jsf and there is only one child pom under jsp (jsp/tests/jsptagtest/pom.xml).

The way it sits right now, it's pretty fragile and fairly un-Mavenish. The right thing to do is have a "permanent" parent pom under the samples directory rather than have the child poms reach across to a directory outside the normal hierarchy (and that disappears when the binary build is constructed). That way it's in the natural directory structure and is always there for the child poms of the samples.

Since there are 2 flavours of sample applications, there's a couple of ways to potentially do this:

• The samples could be re-organized by type so they can each have their own parent pom:

samples/jsf/pom.xml
samples/jsp/pom.xml

• A single samples parent pom (samples/pom.xml) could potentially be constructed that utilizes Maven profiles - a profile for JSF examples and a profile for JSP examples.

I had proposed that exact configuration for 1.2 release and later, but it was not accepted. That would definitely make things much easier, than trying to work with the folder structure the way it is. the sample-jsf-parent and sample-jsp-parent already exist and would be in those 2 locations.
the parent would then move from icemobile/pom.xml to icemobile/samples/pom.xml
...and...none of the poms would need to be modified.

1.3.0 branch rev 35910
icemobile trunk rev 35931