Why does versions plugin propose non-stable versions by default?

[reimer-atb]

Running mvn versions:display-property-updates on a pom.xml with plugin and dependency definitions like this:

  <properties>
    <compiler-plugin.version>3.15.0</compiler-plugin.version>
    <quarkus.platform.artifact-id>quarkus-bom</quarkus.platform.artifact-id>
    <quarkus.platform.group-id>io.quarkus.platform</quarkus.platform.group-id>
    <quarkus.platform.version>3.32.2</quarkus.platform.version>
  </properties>

  <dependencyManagement>
    <dependencies>
      <dependency>
        <groupId>${quarkus.platform.group-id}</groupId>
        <artifactId>${quarkus.platform.artifact-id}</artifactId>
        <version>${quarkus.platform.version}</version>
        <type>pom</type>
        <scope>import</scope>
      </dependency>
    </dependencies>
  </dependencyManagement>
...
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>${compiler-plugin.version}</version>
        <configuration>
          <parameters>true</parameters>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
...
    </plugins>
  </build>

results in this output:

[INFO] The following version property updates are available:
[INFO]   ${compiler-plugin.version} ................... 3.15.0 -> 4.0.0-beta-4
[INFO]   ${quarkus.platform.version} .................... 3.32.2 -> 3.34.0.CR1

In this case display-property-updates also hides from me the fact that there is new "stable" patch release 3.32.3 available for ${quarkus.platform.version}.

And a corresponding mvn versions:update-properties will update to these non-stable versions:

[INFO] Updated ${quarkus.platform.version} from 3.32.2 to 3.34.0.CR1
[INFO] Updated ${compiler-plugin.version} from 3.15.0 to 4.0.0-beta-4

I would have expected that versions plugin treats versions with CR..., alpha-..., beta-... etc. like SNAPSHOT versions, and ignores them by default.

Having these kind of non-stable preview releases seems to be quite common - even core maven plugins do it (see ${compiler-plugin.version}.

At the same time I would think that most people by default want to avoid non-stable preview releases, and usually only update to stable releases.