Conceptually Maven distinguishes between snapshot versions and release versions. For top-level Maven projects that are continuously integrated it is unnatural to make this distinction. Especially when having some kind of continuous deployment implemented, it doesn’t make much sense to create and deploy artifacts with a snapshot version at all. Snapshot versions cannot be linked to a unique revision in a version control system and can have ambiguous snapshot dependencies. That is why such artifacts shouldn’t get deployed to a live environment.
Although it is possible to embed version control revision information as metadata into artifacts, for instance via the Manifest file, it is recommended to avoid snapshot versions at all. Only unique release versions should be continuously created and deployed instead. In fact, every single revision can be considered to be a release as will be shown below.
In order to implement this concept of continuous releasing the revision number needs to be made part of the artifact version.Read more →