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It doesn't. .metadata/.plugins in the workspace contains just the plugin metadata(settings, temp files, caches etc) related to the projects in your workspace. Plugins themselves are stored in the eclipse installation directory (%eclipse_home%/plugins to be specific).

The real prank here is obviously getting a friend to use Eclipse. I'm not sure you'll ever be forgiven.

Because if there's more than one of you working on the same project, you want to keep your plugin versions in sync too, I assume.

But that sync happens at the Project level, not Workspace level.