SAR-Module dependencies are packaged inside the EAR

There's pretty much nothing the ear plugin can do at this point. Packaging dependencies in the sar is a choice that you make, you could perfectly as well not do that and rely on the transitive mechanism just for any other other library.

The duplication comes from your setup actually. If you really want to bundle these libraries in your sar, mark them as provided then.

How is this in my setup?

In the SAR I have a normal list of dependencies, which imho SHOULD be packaged inside the SAR. Then in the EAR I only have a dependency on the SAR.
Why is this handled differently compared to eg a WAR artifact? I have the exact same dependency-setup in the SAR and WAR, but only when packaging the SAR into an EAR, the transitive dependencies get collected.

If you are so sure it is a setup-thing, then explain to me why it doesn't do this with the WAR as well?

Also, it is not a CHOICE to package the libs into the SAR, it's the default behavior! You CAN exclude some (or all) libs – again very similar to the WAR actually...

except the war is considered as a final artifact by maven (no transitive dependency resolution) and the sar is just handled as a regular jar file with a special extension. These "hacks" have no relationship with the maven ear plugin. The dependency resolution mechanism is in the core. At best, your request belongs there which is why I closed this as won't fix.

Why didn't you say so in the first place!?

OK, I'll think about filing this in Maven core...