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One feature of Maven 3 I am eagerly awaiting is automatic parent versioning, that is, no longer needing to hardcode the parent version in every child pom.xml.

This feature is apparently coming in Maven 3.1, but when is Maven 3.1 coming? Ironically, if I search around the net, I find many references (examples here, here, and here) to how one of the top features in Maven 3.0 is the versionless parent element, except it's actually coming in Maven 3.1. And the only substantive mentions of Maven 3.1 that I've found are these same articles that are actually about 3.0.

Even a google query for 3.1 on maven.apache.org doesn't turn up anything useful.

Where's the go-to place for project plans and timelines for upcoming Apache project releases; how come the whole world knows about features in Maven 3.1 but I can't find a roadmap or timeline; does a schedule for Maven 3.1 exist?

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metamatt
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  • There are no owners of time machines here. If there's no roadmap at maven.apache.org, that's because there's *no roadmap*. Volunteer software happens on unpredictable schedules. – bmargulies Apr 12 '11 at 22:18
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    Not being able to find a roadmap, I could believe either that no roadmap exists, or that it exists and I don't know where to find it, hence the question. – metamatt Apr 12 '11 at 22:22
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    Also, given that there are several authoritative-sounding articles (including the ones I linked in the question) and several StackOverflow questions (including the one I linked in the question) that say things about the feature set included in Maven 3.1, presumably, they got that information somewhere, and that somewhere would be a useful answer to my question. – metamatt Apr 12 '11 at 22:23
  • There are a number of rather confident personalities associated with maven development, and they write very confident statements. Which don't necessarily correspond to reality. If you really want to know, try asking the maven user mailing list and see what comes back. – bmargulies Apr 12 '11 at 22:32
  • Maven 3.1 has been released – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen Jul 17 '13 at 19:45

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The Maven project at Apache is using JIRA for tracking bugs and features - including the roadmaps. You can find the general link to the Maven JIRA in the menu on the left of the Maven web site main page.

Maven roadmaps overview: http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MNG#selectedTab=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.project%3Aroadmap-panel

The Maven-3.1.0 roadmap: http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MNG/fixforversion/18967
The Maven-3.1.x roadmap: http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MNG/fixforversion/18129
The Maven-3.2 roadmap: http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MNG/fixforversion/15565

The automatic parent versioning issue: http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MNG-624
(Update: As of now, the new target release for this feature is v3.2)

You can see from the page there, that (effective now 2011-04-13) 88% of the items for v3.1 are still open and that 2% of the roadmap items are in progress and that 90% are not assigned. Given that, it makes not much sense yet to talk about a release date. But as bmargulies suggested in a comment above, if you ask on the developers mailing list, they might have a rough idea as to when the major drivers of the project plan to start to put their workforce on these roadmap items ... I can just guess, based on the fact that Sonatype plays an important role there and that they probably will be pretty much focused integrating their m2e/m2eclipse on the Eclipse release train (scheduled for release end of June) and on their investment into the Hudson project ... so my personal guess would be "probably not before Q4".

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Jörg
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  • Thanks -- the JIRA links are really helpful. – metamatt Apr 13 '11 at 16:29
  • BTW, this Q&A http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6109814/when-should-mvn-release-be-used-in-the-project-lifecycle is somewhat related, though, at least might be of interest WRT to version numbering. – Jörg Sep 06 '11 at 08:01
  • automatic parent versioning (your feature of interest) has been postponed to v3.2 - see also http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MNG/fixforversion/15565 – Jörg Nov 20 '12 at 14:49
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    Maven-3.1 will be released next Monday (26/Nov/12) – Jörg Nov 20 '12 at 14:53
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    @Jörg it appears that that deadline was missed. If there is a location for autoritative information on the current status, it would be nice if you edited it into your answer. – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen Jan 07 '13 at 12:34
  • @thorbjorn-ravn-andersen thanks for the update - obviously, the release date announced on the roadmap has been caught by reality ;-) – Jörg Jan 10 '13 at 09:00
  • @thorbjorn-ravn-andersen if you need more authoritative developer feedback, you can find it or ask for it using Mavens mailing lists ... there have been plenty of discussion threads related to this release since end of november. And from what I gathered there, it was just too hard to find a consensus in time before the holidays ... this all manifests itself in the remaining open issue, which also can be found following the links in above answer: http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MNG-5406 And latest posts indicate it's almost done: http://maven.40175.n5.nabble.com/Logging-tp5736435p5742512.html – Jörg Jan 10 '13 at 09:58
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    @Jörg - if you press tab after typing "@t" SE should autocomplete my name - makes it easier and more reliable. I did not see your comments. – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen Feb 25 '13 at 10:47
  • @ThorbjørnRavnAndersen - great, thanks(!) - didn't realize this so far – Jörg Feb 27 '13 at 11:00
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Maven 3.1 is now available. Download from: http://maven.apache.org/download.cgi

Kees van Dieren
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If anyone's interested, we created a custom solution that intercepts and replaces the parent version in all child poms. You basically drop an overrides jar into your apache-maven\lib folder that will replace certain parent versions right when they're initially read by Maven (using a value from a properties file). The full details and jar were added to the automatic parent versioning jira along with instructions getting this to work with Jenkins and IntelliJ.

Mark Morris
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