Why is JPA part of the "system-wide library path"?

Matt Parker - That would be my question as well. That does not sound right.

Of course we just can fix the interval and be done,

I think there might really be two things here. First the question of the "correct" interval for the JPA spec and there (according to the referenced spec) we might just have the wrong range. This should be easy to fix.

On top of that we have the issue around reflection and various classpaths. I agree with Gunnar Morling that it would be nice to fully understand what's going on.