Maven 3.0.5 vs 3.1.1 vs 3.2.1

java, maven

Solution

Since Codehaus shut down in April 2015, some of the links in the historical release notes (e.g. in 3.2.1) are broken. You can browse them at:

https://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/ReleaseNote.jspa?projectId=12316922

One important point for consideration: upgrading Maven will upgrade the default version of core plugins. And almost everything interesting about Maven is done in the plugins (hence why you won't find many Earth shattering changes in the release notes of Maven itself).

If you are relying on default plugin versions, you need to look at the plugin release notes as well as just the maven version. The release notes for 3.2.1 don't include the changes that come along with Wagon 2.6, for example.

I suggest not to rely on maven's plugin version defaults as it is too easy for colleagues to use slightly different Maven versions leading to inconsistent builds due to plugin differences.

If you're not doing so already, I suggest to explicitly specify your maven version in your pom; e.g.:

<prerequisites>
    <maven>3.0.5</maven>
</prerequisites>

Then add a dependency on versions-maven-plugin and run

mvn versions:display-plugin-updates.

This will give you a list of all the updates available to plugins for your version of maven. Google to find out if there are any changes of interest. Of course you can choose to upgrade only some plugins, but regardless specify all your plugin dependencies explicitly.

Problem

Original source