Does the java-library plugin actually do anything Gradle can't do natively?

For anyone interested:

In other words, apart from marking certain configurations as deprecated, it behaves exactly like the Java plugin. Since the Kotlin plugin extends the Java plugin (https://github.com/JetBrains/kotlin/blob/a55296db26946e4d45b3ecbd523a6c7d10dfe54f/libraries/tools/kotlin-gradle-plugin/src/main/kotlin/org/jetbrains/kotlin/gradle/plugin/KotlinPlugin.kt#L363), it seem that including java-library in a Kotlin project is redundant from a functionality standpoint.

I will add however that I was mistaken in the OP when I implied that Gradle includes the api/implementation functions natively - it is the Java (and therefore Kotlin) plugin that does that.