Managing Maven plugin versions with Spring Boot BOM - spring-boot

Question

I have a Maven POM for a Spring Boot project. The POM imports the Spring Boot BOM. Now I want to customize the configuration of a Maven plugin, say, mvn-compiler-plugin. I'd like to use the plugin version maven-compiler-plugin.version dictated by the spring-boot-dependencies BOM.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>ch.ge.mygroup</groupId>
<artifactId>myartifact</artifactId>
<version>1.0.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>war</packaging>
<properties>
<spring-boot.version>2.4.2</spring-boot.version>
</properties>
<dependencyManagement>
<dependencies>
<!-- Spring Boot BOM -->
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-dependencies</artifactId>
<version>${spring-boot.version}</version>
<type>pom</type>
<scope>import</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<version>${maven-compiler-plugin.version}</version>
<configuration>
<!-- some particular config here -->
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
</project>
But this does work: I come up with a Maven error:
[ERROR] [ERROR] Some problems were encountered while processing the POMs:
[ERROR] 'build.plugins.plugin.version' for org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-compiler-plugin must be a valid version but is '${maven-compiler-plugin.version}'. # line 31, column 26
So I have to explicitly specify the version of the Maven plugin, which I want to avoid.
In summary:
Using
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<version>${maven-compiler-plugin.version}</version>
<configuration>
<!-- some particular config here -->
</configuration>
</plugin>
yields a Maven error.
Using
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<version>3.8.1</version>
<configuration>
<!-- some particular config here -->
</configuration>
</plugin>
works, but prevents me from using the version (3.8.1) dictated by the Spring Boot BOM.
Using
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<!-- some particular config here -->
</configuration>
</plugin>
works, but uses an old version (3.1) of the plugin.
How can I avoid to explicitly specify the plugin version and instead implicitly use the plugin version provided in the Spring Boot BOM?

Answer 1

If you want to override Spring Boot dependencies by simply updating properties, you have to specify the parent POM instead of importing:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>ch.ge.mygroup</groupId>
<artifactId>myartifact</artifactId>
<version>1.0.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>war</packaging>
<parent>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-dependencies</artifactId>
<version>2.4.2</version>
<relativePath/>
</parent>
<properties>
<spring-boot.version>2.4.2</spring-boot.version>
<maven-compiler-plugin.version>3.7.0</maven-compiler-plugin.version>
</properties>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<version>${maven-compiler-plugin.version}</version>
<configuration>
<!-- some particular config here -->
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
</project>