From the Maven Doc:
compile
This is the default scope, used if none is specified. Compile
dependencies are available in all classpaths of a project.
Furthermore, those dependencies are propagated to dependent projects.provided
This is much like compile, but indicates you expect the JDK or a
container to provide the dependency at runtime. For example, when
building a web application for the Java Enterprise Edition, you would
set the dependency on the Servlet API and related Java EE APIs to
scope provided because the web container provides those classes. This
scope is only available on the compilation and test classpath, and is
not transitive.
Recap:
- dependencies are not transitive (as you mentioned)
- provided scope is only available on the compilation and test classpath, whereas compile scope is available in all classpaths.
- provided dependencies are not packaged