title: dependency for Apache Commons Configuration2 declared as optional
body: <p>I try to simple usage of simple Apache Commons Configuration2 loading configuration from a properties file. Here is my dependency:</p>
  
  <pre><code>    &lt;dependency&gt;
          &lt;groupId&gt;org.apache.commons&lt;/groupId&gt;
          &lt;artifactId&gt;commons-configuration2&lt;/artifactId&gt;
          &lt;version&gt;2.1&lt;/version&gt;
      &lt;/dependency&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I try to start my web application and get this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.commons.beanutils.DynaBean
      at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoaderBase.loadClass(WebappClassLoaderBase.java:1285)
      at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoaderBase.loadClass(WebappClassLoaderBase.java:1119)
      at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
      at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:264)
      at com.sun.proxy.$Proxy21.&lt;clinit&gt;(Unknown Source)
      at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
      at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:62)
      at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
      at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:423)
      at java.lang.reflect.Proxy.newProxyInstance(Proxy.java:739)
      at org.apache.commons.configuration2.builder.fluent.Parameters.createParametersProxy(Parameters.java:294)
      at org.apache.commons.configuration2.builder.fluent.Parameters.properties(Parameters.java:245)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Lovely. Since when can't we use Maven to get dependencies automatically? I look at the <a href="http://search.maven.org/#artifactdetails%7Corg.apache.commons%7Ccommons-configuration2%7C2.1%7Cjar" rel="nofollow noreferrer">commons-configuration2 POM on Maven Central</a> and see that commons-beanutil is declared as <em>optional</em>.</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;dependency&gt;
    &lt;groupId&gt;commons-beanutils&lt;/groupId&gt;
    &lt;artifactId&gt;commons-beanutils&lt;/artifactId&gt;
    &lt;version&gt;1.9.2&lt;/version&gt;
    &lt;optional&gt;true&lt;/optional&gt;
  &lt;/dependency&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Why is it declared as "optional" when obviously I need it?</p>