download - Downloading all maven dependencies to a directory NOT in repository?

Question

I started to convert my project to maven because I needed to use a library that was distributed in binary form over maven only, but after banging my head against the wall on it for far too long I've decided to stop hurting myself and just use Ant. I'd like to just have maven download the jar and all of its transitive dependencies into a directory of my choosing so I can just check them into my SCM as I normally enjoy and be a blissful developer once again.
Any ideas how to do that easily?

Answer 1

The maven dependency plugin can potentially solve your problem.

If you have a pom with all your project dependencies specified, all you would need to do is run

mvn dependency:copy-dependencies

and you will find the target/dependencies folder filled with all the dependencies, including transitive.

Adding Gustavo's answer from below: To download the dependency sources, you can use

mvn dependency:copy-dependencies -Dclassifier=sources

(via Apache Maven Dependency Plugin doc).