Christian,
I started looking at JyNI, which is the library that the Jython folks are claiming will eventually enable them to call numpy, scipy, etc. Unfortunately it is licensed under the GPL with a classpath exception, so we won't be getting it approved for distribution with Eclipse.
During the recent Science Working Group steering committee call we talked about the possibility of a kind of "Scientific Eclipse Marketplace" where we can distribute some of these capabilities that have undesirable licenses. All sorts of things do this, like Subversive for example, so it may be a possibility. We are still discussing it and I brought it up in the context of 3d graphics engines because they all seem to have some IP issues with JavaFX being the only exception we've found at ORNL.
I think it would be extremely useful to get you talking with the AnalysisRPC team. It could be that EASE supports an "AnalysisRPC" engine much like it supports a Jython engine and that becomes the way we get access to numpy. Not ideal since there would be two Python engines that essentially have different features, but a possibility.
Jay
