Maven is not working in Java 8 when Javadoc tags are incomplete

The easiest approach to get things working with both java 8 and java 7 is to use a profile in the build:

<profiles>
  <profile>
    <id>doclint-java8-disable</id>
    <activation>
      <jdk>[1.8,)</jdk>
    </activation>

    <build>
      <plugins>
        <plugin>
          <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
          <artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
          <configuration>
            <additionalparam>-Xdoclint:none</additionalparam>
          </configuration>
        </plugin>
      </plugins>
    </build>
  </profile>
</profiles>

The shortest solution that will work with any Java version:

<profiles>
    <profile>
        <id>disable-java8-doclint</id>
        <activation>
            <jdk>[1.8,)</jdk>
        </activation>
        <properties>
            <additionalparam>-Xdoclint:none</additionalparam>
        </properties>
    </profile>
</profiles>

Just add that to your POM and you're good to go.

This is basically @ankon's answer plus @zapp's answer.

---

For maven-javadoc-plugin 3.0.0 users:

Replace

<additionalparam>-Xdoclint:none</additionalparam>

by

<doclint>none</doclint>

The best solution would be to fix the javadoc errors. If for some reason that is not possible (ie: auto generated source code) then you can disable this check.

DocLint is a new feature in Java 8, which is summarized as:

Provide a means to detect errors in Javadoc comments early in the development cycle and in a way that is easily linked back to the source code.

This is enabled by default, and will run a whole lot of checks before generating Javadocs. You need to turn this off for Java 8 as specified in this thread. You'll have to add this to your maven configuration:

<profiles>
  <profile>
    <id>java8-doclint-disabled</id>
    <activation>
      <jdk>[1.8,)</jdk>
    </activation>
    <properties>
      <javadoc.opts>-Xdoclint:none</javadoc.opts>
    </properties>
  </profile>
</profiles>
<build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.9</version>
        <executions>
            <execution>
                <id>attach-javadocs</id>
                <goals>
                    <goal>jar</goal>
                </goals>
                <configuration>
                    <additionalparam>${javadoc.opts}</additionalparam>
                </configuration>
            </execution>
        </executions>
    </plugin>
    <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-site-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.3</version>
        <configuration>
          <reportPlugins>
            <plugin>
              <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
              <artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
              <configuration>
                <additionalparam>${javadoc.opts}</additionalparam>
              </configuration>
            </plugin>
          </reportPlugins>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
   </plugins>
</build>

For maven-javadoc-plugin 3.0.0+: Replace

<additionalparam>-Xdoclint:none</additionalparam>

with

<doclint>none</doclint>

Here is the most concise way I am aware of to ignore doclint warnings regardless of java version used. There is no need to duplicate plugin configuration in multiple profiles with slight modifications.

<profiles>
  <profile>
    <id>doclint-java8-disable</id>
    <activation>
      <jdk>[1.8,)</jdk>
    </activation>
    <properties>
      <javadoc.opts>-Xdoclint:none</javadoc.opts>
    </properties>
  </profile>
</profiles>

<build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
      <artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
      <version>2.9.1</version>
      <executions>
        <execution>
          <id>attach-javadocs</id> <!-- The actual id should be apparent from maven output -->
          <configuration>
            <additionalparam>${javadoc.opts}</additionalparam>
          </configuration>
        </execution>
      </executions>
    </plugin>
    ...
  </plugins>
</build>

Tested on oracle/open jdk 6, 7, 8 and 11.