As a result of a recent vote on the Maven Developers list the decision has been made to discontinue support for running Maven itself using Java 5.0.
The Maven 2.0.x release line has a minimum Java requirement of 1.4 The Maven 2.1.x, 2.2.x, 3.0.x and 3.1.x release lines all have a minimum Java requirement of 5.0 After of 30th of September 2013, any new release lines will have a minimum Java requirement of 6.0 Existing release lines will retain their existing requirements for any new patch releases. Plugins will continue to default to following the Java requirements of the base version of Maven that those plugins run on (though specific plugins are always free to insist on a more recent version of Java than their base version of Maven core would indicate if there is a good reason for that action) No decision has been made as to when to move the minimum Java requirement higher. Note that this is only the minimum requirement for running Maven itself. It is possible to configure the Apache Maven Compiler plugin to compile using a different JDK than the JRE used to run Maven. (See http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-compiler-plugin/examples/compile-using-different-jdk.html ) It is possible to configure Apache Maven Surefire and Failsafe plugins to run unit/integration tests using a different JDK than the JRE used to run Maven. (See either http://maven.apache.org/surefire/maven-surefire-plugin/test-mojo.html#jvm) Another useful resource is the Toolchains support: http://maven.apache.org/guides/mini/guide-using-toolchains.html which can be used to simplify using a different JDK for compiling and running unit tests. Thank you. -Stephen Connolly on behalf of the Maven Developers.
