Disable a Maven plugin defined in a parent POM

The thread is old, but maybe someone is still interested. The shortest form I found is further improvement on the example from λlex and bmargulies. The execution tag will look like:

<execution>
    <id>TheNameOfTheRelevantExecution</id>
    <phase/>
</execution>

2 points I want to highlight:

1. phase is set to nothing, which looks less hacky than 'none', though still a hack.
2. id must be the same as execution you want to override. If you don't specify id for execution, Maven will do it implicitly (in a way not expected intuitively by you).

After posting found it is already in stackoverflow: In a Maven multi-module project, how can I disable a plugin in one child?

The following works for me when disabling Findbugs in a child POM:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
    <artifactId>findbugs-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <id>ID_AS_IN_PARENT</id> <!-- id is necessary sometimes -->
            <phase>none</phase>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

Note: the full definition of the Findbugs plugin is in our parent/super POM, so it'll inherit the version and so-on.

In Maven 3, you'll need to use:

 <configuration>
      <skip>true</skip>
 </configuration>

for the plugin.

See if the plugin has a 'skip' configuration parameter. Nearly all do. if it does, just add it to a declaration in the child:

<plugin>
   <groupId>group</groupId>
   <artifactId>artifact</artifactId>
   <configuration>
     <skip>true</skip>
   </configuration>
</plugin>

If not, then use:

<plugin>    
<groupId>group</groupId>   
 <artifactId>artifact</artifactId>    
<executions>
     <execution>
       <id>TheNameOfTheRelevantExecution</id>
       <phase>none</phase>
     </execution>    
</executions>  
</plugin>