Mastering Apache Maven 3

Using SNAPSHOT versioning during development

You should use the SNAPSHOT qualifier for the artifacts produced by your project if those are still under development and deployed regularly to a Maven snapshot repository. If the version to be released is 1.7.0, then you should use the 1.7.0-SNAPSHOT version while it's under development. Maven treats the SNAPSHOT version in a special manner. If you try to deploy 1.7.0-SNAPSHOT into a repository, Maven will first expand the SNAPSHOT qualifier into a date and time value in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). If the date/time at the time of deployment is 10.30 A.M., November 10, 2014, then the SNAPSHOT qualifier will be replaced with 20141110-103005-1, and the artifact will be deployed with the 1.7.0-20141110-103005-1 ...