ppa's should build java ant projects

I just found out that launchpad ppa's require building the package on the remote repository before it will pushout and provide updates to the users.
I was hoping for a deb file, but can understand why you'd do it that way, for the source and patches.

However all java ant projects will not build easily or at all in that autotools make system - as i found out when dh_auto_install failed because it was trying to get the jars from debian/tmp

Why not allow a alternative to the autotolls building as long as the resulting deb file passes lintian and any other test?

For instance a ant project would require it a target 'debian', that the dependencies it requires are recognized (using apache ivy, this would be the same process as maven style builds) and that a project_version.deb file is created in the right dir.

The source would still be there, the deb file would be checked so i don't see why we have to use autotools which i don't like at all?

There is no dependency on the autotools, it just happens to be the default that dh_auto_install falls back to if it can't find another build system. You can run whatever commands you like to build in debian/rules; it doesn't even have to be through dh_auto_install.

See also the Debian Maintainers Guide: http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/index.en.html

I managed to do something but it fails on the ppa:
https://launchpad.net/~i30817/+archive/bookjar/+build/3717291

undoubtably because ivy requires internet access to get the required libraries.
Is there no change of allowing ivy to get the stuff? Or do i have to upload my whole lib folder (about 30 megabytes)? (not all dependencies are packaged by ubuntu)