Question

So basically using the pom shown below, I am ending up with 2 versions of Spring in my WEB-INF/lib folder (3.1 and 3.0.5, and even on 3.0.6 oddly enough). I am assuming that spring-ws is the cause of this, so I tried to add exclusions so that it would not download older versions to no avail. Any suggestions?

    <repositories>
        <repository>
            <id>repository.springframework.milestone</id>
            <name>Spring Framework Maven Milestone Repository</name>
            <url>http://maven.springframework.org/milestone</url>
        </repository>
    </repositories>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>junit</groupId>
            <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
            <version>3.8.1</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>  
            <groupId>com.sun.xml.messaging.saaj</groupId>  
            <artifactId>saaj-impl</artifactId>  
            <version>1.3</version>  
            <scope>runtime</scope>  
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.ws</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-ws-core</artifactId>
            <version>2.0.3.RELEASE</version>
            <exclusions>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                    <artifactId>spring-aop</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                    <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                    <artifactId>spring-oxm</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                    <artifactId>spring-test</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                    <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                    <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                    <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                    <artifactId>spring-beans</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>  
            <groupId>javax.xml.bind</groupId>  
            <artifactId>jaxb-api</artifactId>  
            <version>2.0</version>  
        </dependency>  
        <dependency>  
            <groupId>com.sun.xml.bind</groupId>  
            <artifactId>jaxb-impl</artifactId>  
            <version>2.0.3</version>  
        </dependency>  
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
            <version>3.1.0.RELEASE</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
    <build>
        <finalName>LicensingSOAPService</finalName>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.jvnet.jaxb2.maven2</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-jaxb2-plugin</artifactId>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>generate</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

Edit to show new pom after adding more exclusions.

Answer 1

Try running:

$ mvn dependency:tree

this will reveal the following effective dependencies of spring-ws in your current configuration:

+- org.springframework.ws:spring-ws-core:jar:2.0.3.RELEASE:compile
|  +- org.springframework.ws:spring-xml:jar:2.0.3.RELEASE:compile
|  +- wsdl4j:wsdl4j:jar:1.6.1:compile
|  +- commons-logging:commons-logging:jar:1.1.1:compile
|  +- org.springframework:spring-core:jar:3.0.6.RELEASE:compile
|  \- org.springframework:spring-beans:jar:3.0.6.RELEASE:compile

Now you know what has to go inside <exclusion>. Another approach is to get rid of all exclusions and simply declare dependencies in newer version explicitly, which will override transitive dependencies:

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
        <version>3.1.0.RELEASE</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-oxm</artifactId>
        <version>3.1.0.RELEASE</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
        <version>3.1.0.RELEASE</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
        <version>3.1.0.RELEASE</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
        <version>3.1.0.RELEASE</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-beans</artifactId>
        <version>3.1.0.RELEASE</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-aop</artifactId>
        <version>3.1.0.RELEASE</version>
    </dependency>

Once again experiment with mvn dependency:tree, it will guide you.