test-jar of spring-boot 1.5.16.RELEASE not available

[krulls]

spring-autoconfigure on branch 1.5.x does still reference a test-jar of spring-boot which is not present in the repository manager

see
POM of spring-boot-autoconfigure in version 1.5.16.RELEASE:
https://repo.spring.io/jcenter-cache/org/springframework/boot/spring-boot-autoconfigure/1.5.16.RELEASE/spring-boot-autoconfigure-1.5.16.RELEASE.pom
relevant lines in POM of branch 1.5.x:
https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-boot/blob/1.5.x/spring-boot-autoconfigure/pom.xml#L627:L632
all spring-boot* artefacts of 1.5.16.RELEASE in your repo manager:
https://repo.spring.io/webapp/#/search/package/eyJzZWFyY2giOiJnYXZjIiwiZ3JvdXBJRCI6Im9yZy5zcHJpbmdmcmFtZXdvcmsiLCJhcnRpZmFjdElEIjoic3ByaW5nLWJvb3QiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjoiMVxcLjVcXC4xNlxcLlJFTEVBU0UiLCJzZWxlY3RlZFBhY2thZ2VUeXBlIjp7ImlkIjoiZ2F2YyIsImRpc3BsYXlOYW1lIjoiTWF2ZW4gR0FWQyIsImljb24iOiJwb20ifX0=

Our Ant/Ivy builds are crashing because no test JAR can be retrieved from https://repo.spring.io/release/

We are using this dependency declaration for testing:
<dependency org="org.springframework.boot" name="spring-boot-starter-test" rev="1.5.16.RELEASE" conf="test->default" />

Running an Ant debug dependency resolution (with Ivy) outputs this part:

		<module organisation="org.springframework.boot" name="spring-boot">
			<revision name="1.5.16.RELEASE" status="release" pubdate="20180911162221" resolver="externals" artresolver="externals" homepage="http://projects.spring.io/spring-boot/" downloaded="false" searched="false" default="false" conf="master(*), compile, runtime(*), runtime, compile(*), master" position="52">
				<license name="Apache License, Version 2.0" url="http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0"/>
				<metadata-artifact status="no" details="" size="224036" time="0" location="C:\Users\gajek\.ivy2\externalscache\org.springframework.boot\spring-boot\ivy-1.5.16.RELEASE.xml" searched="false" original-local-location="C:\Users\gajek\.ivy2\externalscache\org.springframework.boot\spring-boot\ivy-1.5.16.RELEASE.xml.original" origin-is-local="false" origin-location="https://nexus.ttt-sp.com/repository/externals/org/springframework/boot/spring-boot/1.5.16.RELEASE/spring-boot-1.5.16.RELEASE.pom"/>
				<caller organisation="org.springframework.boot" name="spring-boot-test" conf="compile, runtime" rev="1.5.16.RELEASE" rev-constraint-default="1.5.16.RELEASE" rev-constraint-dynamic="1.5.16.RELEASE" callerrev="1.5.16.RELEASE"/>
				<caller organisation="org.springframework.boot" name="spring-boot-starter" conf="default, compile, runtime, master" rev="1.5.16.RELEASE" rev-constraint-default="1.5.16.RELEASE" rev-constraint-dynamic="1.5.16.RELEASE" callerrev="1.5.16.RELEASE"/>
				<caller organisation="org.springframework.boot" name="spring-boot-autoconfigure" conf="compile, runtime" rev="1.5.16.RELEASE" rev-constraint-default="1.5.16.RELEASE" rev-constraint-dynamic="1.5.16.RELEASE" callerrev="1.5.16.RELEASE"/>
				<artifacts>
					<artifact name="spring-boot" type="test-jar" ext="jar" extra-classifier="tests" status="failed" details="missing artifact" size="0" time="1804"/>
				</artifacts>
			</revision>
		</module>

[wilkinsona]

As shown in the pom that you've linked to, the dependency on the test jar is test-scoped, as such it should not be a transitive dependency. It certainly isn't when using with Maven or Gradle. If Ant and Ivy are treating it as a transitive dependency, then that's either a bug in Ivy or a problem in your Ivy configuration. Unfortunately, it's been several years since I've used Ivy so I can't say which. If you need some further help on tracking down why Ivy is behaving that way that it is, I would recommend asking a question on Stack Overflow.