Recently, I was asked to do an interview for EclipseMagazine about the future of Maven and release of Maven 3.0.  JAXenter published part one and two of the interview over two weeks.  Below is the full interview, which covers everything from changes Maven 2 users can expect when migrating to Maven 3, Nexus repository manager, the Maven Shell, Polyglot Maven, and more.

With the switch from Maven 1.x to 2, developers had to manage some fundamental changes. What challenges can users expect when migrating from Maven 2 to Maven 3?

We are planning that, in most cases, Maven 3.0 will be a drop-in replacement for Maven 2.x. We have gone to great lengths to ensure backward compatibility while reimplementing a good portion of Maven’s internals. From the command-line perspective we are trying to be fully compatible. Maven 3.0 will not allow duplicate dependency or plugin declarations, so those problems would need to be fixed, but aside from that no changes to your POMs will be required. In all other regards we have created backward compatibility layers to protect users from the many internal API changes that we have made. I really hope that the Maven community can move forward to Maven 3.0 without grief, and use the new features as it is convenient for them.

Is there anything users should keep in mind when creating a new project, to be prepared for Maven 3?

It honestly shouldn’t be any different from Maven 2.0. That’s the intended goal. So much has changed under the covers that we didn’t want to change the POM format. The primary goal is a path forward for all Maven users, efficient embedding, increased performance, synchronizing the Maven 3.0 code base with m2eclipse, and adding extension points for tools like Tycho, Polyglot Maven, and the Maven Shell.

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