Occasionally artifacts are relocated to another group or artifact-id.
A typical reason for an artifact to be relocated is when a project gets a sponsor
that wishes the artifact to be placed under it's own namespace or when the
early versions of artifacts have been commited in the wrong group.
Artifacts may be relocated by changing the group-id, the artifact-id or both. For example,
group_x.myartifact ==> group_y.myartifact
group_x.myartifact ==> group_x.my_new_artifact
group_x.myartifact ==> group_y.my_new_artifact
Usually though only the group of the artifact changes.
Using relocated artifacts is not recommended. The new versions
of the artifact will no longer be published at the original location but
at the new location instead. The artifact should be considered 'deprecated'
and it is best to upgrade your projects to use the new artifact.
A relocation of an artifact is often combined with a package renaming
of the artifacts' classes. In most cases you will need to apply some
refactorings when you apply the new artifact in your project. You should
check the release notes of the artifact to check for details.
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