How can you eliminate dependency on a library in the Maven build system?

In Maven, to resolve a dependency, you can use the <exclusions> element in the dependency description. This allows you to exclude transitive dependencies that come along with the main library.

For example, how to exclude a dependency inside pom.xml:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.example</groupId>
    <artifactId>some-library</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.0</version>
    <exclusions>
        <exclusion>
            <groupId>com.unwanted</groupId>
            <artifactId>unwanted-library</artifactId>
        </exclusion>
    </exclusions>
</dependency>

Thus, unwanted-library will not be added to the project, even though it is a dependency of some-library.

If you want to completely remove a dependency from the project, you can simply delete or comment out the corresponding <dependency> block in pom.xml.