The usecase for the installer is different than the one for the zip

If you want the separate jars, use the maven repo.

The .jar file is an installer that you can install with the command I mentioned in one (or two) posts below this one, the one about documentation and installing jBPM 3.3 (search functionality is great btw). After running the installer there is a lib directory with all separate jars. The installer is kind of unpacking things and does some other stuff that you can ignore the outcome of. You might indeed think that a JBoss AS server is needed, but it isn't realy. You can point the installer to a temp dir as a fake existing JBoss AS installation just make it continue. The same is true for the DB, just say hsqldb and ignore the fact that it creates some files in this temporary/fake JBoss AS dir. So no it does not force you to have it runtime but yes if you want to use the installer you have to point to something.

The installer needs improving, that is known and that is why there was a release to get some feedback on the usage. A separate zip with just the jars will not be needed if the installer improves.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback

You may file a jira issue for this usecase. I'd appreciate that.