When using maven to build the complete/ sub-project, the jar produced cannot be used in a standalone way. The gradlew build path does create a suitable jar.
Similar to the gradlew output, an ascii art "SPRING" banner, some logging and then, intermixed with the logging:
Converting (firstName: Jill, lastName: Doe) into (firstName: JILL, lastName: DOE)
Converting (firstName: Joe, lastName: Doe) into (firstName: JOE, lastName: DOE)
Converting (firstName: Justin, lastName: Doe) into (firstName: JUSTIN, lastName: DOE)
Converting (firstName: Jane, lastName: Doe) into (firstName: JANE, lastName: DOE)
Converting (firstName: John, lastName: Doe) into (firstName: JOHN, lastName: DOE)
Found <firstName: JILL, lastName: DOE> in the database.
Found <firstName: JOE, lastName: DOE> in the database.
Found <firstName: JUSTIN, lastName: DOE> in the database.
Found <firstName: JANE, lastName: DOE> in the database.
Found <firstName: JOHN, lastName: DOE> in the database.
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/springframework/context/ApplicationContext
at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredMethods0(Native Method)
at java.lang.Class.privateGetDeclaredMethods(Class.java:2482)
at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredMethod(Class.java:1982)
at org.springframework.boot.loader.MainMethodRunner.run(MainMethodRunner.java:48)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:679)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:217)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:205)
at org.springframework.boot.loader.LaunchedURLClassLoader.findClass(LaunchedURLClassLoader.java:110)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:321)
at org.springframework.boot.loader.LaunchedURLClassLoader.doLoadClass(LaunchedURLClassLoader.java:93)
at org.springframework.boot.loader.LaunchedURLClassLoader.loadClass(LaunchedURLClassLoader.java:65)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:266)
... 5 more
java version "1.6.0_27"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea6 1.12.6) (6b27-1.12.6-1~deb6u1)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.0-b12, mixed mode)
Apache Maven 2.2.1 (rdebian-4)
Java version: 1.6.0_26
Java home: /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.26/jre
Default locale: en_GB, platform encoding: UTF-8
OS name: "linux" version: "2.6.32-5-amd64" arch: "amd64" Family: "unix"
Just use gradlew for the moment.
I've had a quick play around with gs-spring-boot today as well, and that project also displayed similar behaviour, though I did not test that the gradlew workaround works.