Since we almost always make changes in a backward-compatible manner, it looks like the best solution for us is to ensure that the latest versions of dependencies are used. The Maven Enforcer plugin with the "Require Upper Bound Dependencies" feature accomplishes this.
From http://maven.apache.org/enforcer/enforcer-rules/requireUpperBoundDeps.html:
This rule requires that the version for each dependency resolved during a build, is equal to or higher than all transitive dependency declarations. The version of each dependency resolved during the build will normally be the version specified in the POM or the version with the least transitive steps (the "nearest" definition). For more information about Maven dependency resolution, see the Maven site.
Here is a concrete example. This will cause a build to fail:
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
<artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId>
<version>1.4.0</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>ch.qos.logback</groupId>
<artifactId>logback-classic</artifactId>
<version>0.9.9</version>
<!-- Depends on org.slf4j:slf4j-api:1.5.0 -->
</dependency>
</dependencies>
Because the project will run logback-classic 0.9.9 with slf4j-api 1.4.0 and slf4j-api 1.4.0 is probably not forwards compatible with slf4j-api 1.5.0.
This is the log message:
Failed while enforcing RequireUpperBoundDeps. The error(s) are [
RequireUpperBoundDeps error for org.slf4j:slf4j-api:1.4.0 paths to dependency are:
+-test:TestParent:1.0-SNAPSHOT
+-org.slf4j:slf4j-api:1.4.0
and
+-test:TestParent:1.0-SNAPSHOT
+-ch.qos.logback:logback-classic:0.9.9
+-org.slf4j:slf4j-api:1.5.0
]
We're probably going to set up this plugin in a profile which we can turn on or off.