diff --git a/cascading2/pom.xml b/cascading2/pom.xml
index 516d0bda2..9c56623b3 100644
--- a/cascading2/pom.xml
+++ b/cascading2/pom.xml
@@ -4,21 +4,18 @@
   <parent>
     <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
     <artifactId>elephant-bird</artifactId>
-    <version>4.11rc2-SNAPSHOT</version>
+    <version>4.12</version>
     <relativePath>..</relativePath>
   </parent>
-
   <artifactId>elephant-bird-cascading2</artifactId>
   <name>Elephant Bird Cascading2</name>
   <description>Cascading utilities.</description>
-
   <repositories>
     <repository>
       <id>conjars.org</id>
       <url>http://conjars.org/repo</url>
     </repository>
   </repositories>
-
   <dependencies>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
diff --git a/core/pom.xml b/core/pom.xml
index 5287954bf..7a19ca8df 100644
--- a/core/pom.xml
+++ b/core/pom.xml
@@ -4,14 +4,12 @@
   <parent>
     <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
     <artifactId>elephant-bird</artifactId>
-    <version>4.11rc2-SNAPSHOT</version>
+    <version>4.12</version>
     <relativePath>..</relativePath>
   </parent>
-
   <artifactId>elephant-bird-core</artifactId>
   <name>Elephant Bird Core</name>
   <description>Core utilities.</description>
-
   <dependencies>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
@@ -66,9 +64,7 @@
       <groupId>ant</groupId>
       <artifactId>ant</artifactId>
     </dependency>
-
   </dependencies>
-
   <profiles>
     <profile>
       <id>thrift7</id>
@@ -147,10 +143,8 @@
       </build>
     </profile>
   </profiles>
-
   <build>
     <plugins>
-
       <!-- protobuf -->
       <plugin>
         <groupId>com.github.igor-petruk.protobuf</groupId>
@@ -163,7 +157,6 @@
           </execution>
         </executions>
       </plugin>
-
       <!-- thrift -->
       <plugin>
         <groupId>org.apache.thrift.tools</groupId>
@@ -178,7 +171,6 @@
           </execution>
         </executions>
       </plugin>
-
       <!-- need this for the pig, rcfile tests -->
       <plugin>
         <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
@@ -190,7 +182,6 @@
           </execution>
         </executions>
       </plugin>
-
     </plugins>
   </build>
 </project>
diff --git a/crunch/pom.xml b/crunch/pom.xml
index 1bcbf33e7..e5db251f5 100644
--- a/crunch/pom.xml
+++ b/crunch/pom.xml
@@ -4,14 +4,12 @@
   <parent>
     <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
     <artifactId>elephant-bird</artifactId>
-    <version>4.11rc2-SNAPSHOT</version>
+    <version>4.12</version>
     <relativePath>..</relativePath>
   </parent>
-
   <artifactId>elephant-bird-crunch</artifactId>
   <name>Elephant Bird Crunch</name>
   <description>Crunch utilities.</description>
-
   <dependencies>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
diff --git a/examples/pom.xml b/examples/pom.xml
index ac2c19130..b9e12d6be 100644
--- a/examples/pom.xml
+++ b/examples/pom.xml
@@ -4,14 +4,12 @@
   <parent>
     <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
     <artifactId>elephant-bird</artifactId>
-    <version>4.11rc2-SNAPSHOT</version>
+    <version>4.12</version>
     <relativePath>..</relativePath>
   </parent>
-
   <artifactId>elephant-bird-examples</artifactId>
   <name>Elephant Bird Examples</name>
   <description>Elephant Bird Examples.</description>
-
   <dependencies>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
@@ -39,10 +37,8 @@
       <artifactId>slf4j-simple</artifactId>
     </dependency>
   </dependencies>
-
   <build>
     <plugins>
-
       <!-- protobuf -->
       <plugin>
         <groupId>com.github.igor-petruk.protobuf</groupId>
@@ -55,7 +51,6 @@
           </execution>
         </executions>
       </plugin>
-
       <!-- thrift -->
       <plugin>
         <groupId>org.apache.thrift.tools</groupId>
@@ -70,7 +65,6 @@
           </execution>
         </executions>
       </plugin>
-
       <!-- add generated sources -->
       <plugin>
         <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
@@ -91,7 +85,6 @@
           </execution>
         </executions>
       </plugin>
-
     </plugins>
   </build>
 </project>
diff --git a/hadoop-compat/pom.xml b/hadoop-compat/pom.xml
index 05a885ecb..9f0943e5a 100644
--- a/hadoop-compat/pom.xml
+++ b/hadoop-compat/pom.xml
@@ -4,14 +4,12 @@
   <parent>
     <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
     <artifactId>elephant-bird</artifactId>
-    <version>4.11rc2-SNAPSHOT</version>
+    <version>4.12</version>
     <relativePath>..</relativePath>
   </parent>
-
   <artifactId>elephant-bird-hadoop-compat</artifactId>
   <name>Elephant Bird Hadoop Compatibility</name>
   <description>Utilities for dealing with Hadoop incompatibilities between 1.x and 2.x</description>
-
   <dependencies>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>org.apache.hadoop</groupId>
diff --git a/hive/pom.xml b/hive/pom.xml
index 427aa6d72..406ebfad5 100644
--- a/hive/pom.xml
+++ b/hive/pom.xml
@@ -4,14 +4,12 @@
   <parent>
     <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
     <artifactId>elephant-bird</artifactId>
-    <version>4.11rc2-SNAPSHOT</version>
+    <version>4.12</version>
     <relativePath>..</relativePath>
   </parent>
-
   <artifactId>elephant-bird-hive</artifactId>
   <name>Elephant Bird Hive</name>
   <description>Hive utilities.</description>
-
   <repositories>
     <!-- hcatalog artifact hosted by Twitter -->
     <repository>
@@ -26,7 +24,6 @@
       </snapshots>
     </repository>
   </repositories>
-
   <dependencies>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
diff --git a/lucene/pom.xml b/lucene/pom.xml
index e32515db3..a9b264a5f 100644
--- a/lucene/pom.xml
+++ b/lucene/pom.xml
@@ -4,14 +4,12 @@
   <parent>
     <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
     <artifactId>elephant-bird</artifactId>
-    <version>4.11rc2-SNAPSHOT</version>
+    <version>4.12</version>
     <relativePath>..</relativePath>
   </parent>
-
   <artifactId>elephant-bird-lucene</artifactId>
   <name>Elephant Bird Lucene</name>
   <description>Lucene Index InputFormats and OutputFormats</description>
-
   <dependencies>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
@@ -59,7 +57,6 @@
       <artifactId>easymock</artifactId>
     </dependency>
   </dependencies>
-
   <build>
     <plugins>
       <!-- publish tests so they can be shared with elephant-bird-pig-lucene -->
diff --git a/mahout/pom.xml b/mahout/pom.xml
index 3747a5931..7b37e996e 100644
--- a/mahout/pom.xml
+++ b/mahout/pom.xml
@@ -4,14 +4,12 @@
   <parent>
     <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
     <artifactId>elephant-bird</artifactId>
-    <version>4.11rc2-SNAPSHOT</version>
+    <version>4.12</version>
     <relativePath>..</relativePath>
   </parent>
-
   <artifactId>elephant-bird-mahout</artifactId>
   <name>Elephant Bird Mahout</name>
   <description>Mahout utilities.</description>
-
   <dependencies>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
diff --git a/pig-lucene/pom.xml b/pig-lucene/pom.xml
index 0db4188fd..d7f4dc527 100644
--- a/pig-lucene/pom.xml
+++ b/pig-lucene/pom.xml
@@ -4,14 +4,12 @@
   <parent>
     <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
     <artifactId>elephant-bird</artifactId>
-    <version>4.11rc2-SNAPSHOT</version>
+    <version>4.12</version>
     <relativePath>..</relativePath>
   </parent>
-
   <artifactId>elephant-bird-pig-lucene</artifactId>
   <name>Elephant Bird Pig Lucene</name>
   <description>Lucene Index Load/Store Funcs</description>
-
   <dependencies>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
diff --git a/pig/pom.xml b/pig/pom.xml
index db7221546..561e532d8 100644
--- a/pig/pom.xml
+++ b/pig/pom.xml
@@ -4,14 +4,12 @@
   <parent>
     <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
     <artifactId>elephant-bird</artifactId>
-    <version>4.11rc2-SNAPSHOT</version>
+    <version>4.12</version>
     <relativePath>..</relativePath>
   </parent>
-
   <artifactId>elephant-bird-pig</artifactId>
   <name>Elephant Bird Pig</name>
   <description>Pig utilities.</description>
-
   <dependencies>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
@@ -20,7 +18,7 @@
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
       <artifactId>elephant-bird-core</artifactId>
-      <type>test-jar</type> 
+      <type>test-jar</type>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>org.apache.hadoop</groupId>
@@ -40,10 +38,9 @@
       <artifactId>joda-time</artifactId>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
-     <groupId>org.codehaus.jackson</groupId>
+      <groupId>org.codehaus.jackson</groupId>
       <artifactId>jackson-mapper-asl</artifactId>
     </dependency>
-
     <!-- log4j required for tests-->
     <dependency>
       <groupId>log4j</groupId>
@@ -54,10 +51,8 @@
       <artifactId>easymock</artifactId>
     </dependency>
   </dependencies>
-
   <build>
     <plugins>
-
       <!-- thrift -->
       <plugin>
         <groupId>org.apache.thrift.tools</groupId>
@@ -72,7 +67,6 @@
           </execution>
         </executions>
       </plugin>
-
       <!-- increase memory -->
       <plugin>
         <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
@@ -80,7 +74,6 @@
           <argLine>-Djava.library.path=${test.library.path} -Xmx1024m</argLine>
         </configuration>
       </plugin>
-
       <!-- need this for the mahout tests -->
       <plugin>
         <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
@@ -92,7 +85,6 @@
           </execution>
         </executions>
       </plugin>
-
     </plugins>
   </build>
 </project>
diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 1d6741630..e473d31b5 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -6,12 +6,10 @@
     <artifactId>oss-parent</artifactId>
     <version>7</version>
   </parent>
-
   <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
   <artifactId>elephant-bird</artifactId>
-  <version>4.11rc2-SNAPSHOT</version>
+  <version>4.12</version>
   <packaging>pom</packaging>
-
   <name>Elephant Bird</name>
   <url>https://github.com/twitter/elephant-bird</url>
   <description>
@@ -20,7 +18,6 @@
     LoadFuncs, Hive SerDe, HBase miscellanea, etc. The majority of these are in
     production at Twitter running over data every day.
   </description>
-
   <licenses>
     <license>
       <name>The Apache Software License, Version 2.0</name>
@@ -28,12 +25,10 @@
       <distribution>repo</distribution>
     </license>
   </licenses>
-
   <organization>
     <name>Twitter</name>
     <url>http://twitter.com/</url>
   </organization>
-
   <developers>
     <developer>
       <id>kevin</id>
@@ -60,27 +55,26 @@
       <name>Johan Oskarsson</name>
     </developer>
   </developers>
-
   <issueManagement>
     <system>github</system>
     <url>https://github.com/twitter/elephant-bird/issues</url>
   </issueManagement>
-
   <scm>
     <connection>scm:git:https://github.com/twitter/elephant-bird.git</connection>
     <developerConnection>scm:git:git@github.com:twitter/elephant-bird.git</developerConnection>
     <url>https://github.com/twitter/elephant-bird</url>
     <tag>HEAD</tag>
   </scm>
-
   <properties>
     <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
     <slf4j.version>1.6.4</slf4j.version>
-    <apache.hadoop1.version>1.1.2</apache.hadoop1.version> <!-- for hadoop1 profile -->
-    <apache.hadoop2.version>2.0.3-alpha</apache.hadoop2.version> <!-- for hadoop2 profile -->
+    <apache.hadoop1.version>1.1.2</apache.hadoop1.version>
+    <!-- for hadoop1 profile -->
+    <apache.hadoop2.version>2.0.3-alpha</apache.hadoop2.version>
+    <!-- for hadoop2 profile -->
     <specific.hadoop.version>${apache.hadoop1.version}</specific.hadoop.version>
     <apache.pig.version>0.11.1</apache.pig.version>
-    <apache.pig.classifier />
+    <apache.pig.classifier/>
     <apache.crunch.hadoop1.version>0.8.2</apache.crunch.hadoop1.version>
     <apache.crunch.version>${apache.crunch.hadoop1.version}</apache.crunch.version>
     <apache.crunch.hadoop2.version>0.8.2-hadoop2</apache.crunch.hadoop2.version>
@@ -93,7 +87,6 @@
     <thrift.version>0.7.0</thrift.version>
     <thrift.executable>thrift</thrift.executable>
   </properties>
-
   <repositories>
     <repository>
       <id>twitter</id>
@@ -106,10 +99,8 @@
       <url>http://maven.twttr.com</url>
     </pluginRepository>
   </pluginRepositories>
-
   <dependencyManagement>
     <dependencies>
-
       <!-- EB modules -->
       <dependency>
         <groupId>${project.groupId}</groupId>
@@ -187,7 +178,6 @@
         <artifactId>elephant-bird-examples</artifactId>
         <version>${project.version}</version>
       </dependency>
-
       <!-- testing -->
       <dependency>
         <groupId>junit</groupId>
@@ -207,7 +197,6 @@
         <version>3.1</version>
         <scope>test</scope>
       </dependency>
-
       <!-- logging -->
       <dependency>
         <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
@@ -227,7 +216,6 @@
         <version>1.2.17</version>
         <scope>test</scope>
       </dependency>
-
       <!-- utils -->
       <dependency>
         <groupId>commons-lang</groupId>
@@ -244,7 +232,6 @@
         <artifactId>guava</artifactId>
         <version>11.0.1</version>
       </dependency>
-
       <!-- serialization -->
       <dependency>
         <groupId>com.google.protobuf</groupId>
@@ -261,7 +248,6 @@
         <artifactId>json-simple</artifactId>
         <version>1.1</version>
       </dependency>
-
       <!-- hadoop -->
       <dependency>
         <groupId>org.apache.hadoop</groupId>
@@ -280,7 +266,6 @@
         <artifactId>hadoop-lzo</artifactId>
         <version>${hadoop-lzo.version}</version>
       </dependency>
-
       <!-- cascading -->
       <dependency>
         <groupId>cascading</groupId>
@@ -288,7 +273,6 @@
         <version>2.5.2</version>
         <scope>provided</scope>
       </dependency>
-
       <!-- crunch -->
       <dependency>
         <groupId>org.apache.crunch</groupId>
@@ -296,7 +280,6 @@
         <version>${apache.crunch.version}</version>
         <scope>provided</scope>
       </dependency>
-
       <!-- pig -->
       <dependency>
         <groupId>org.apache.pig</groupId>
@@ -323,7 +306,6 @@
         <version>1.8.8</version>
         <scope>provided</scope>
       </dependency>
-
       <!-- hive -->
       <dependency>
         <groupId>org.apache.hive</groupId>
@@ -367,7 +349,6 @@
         <version>2.3-eb</version>
         <scope>provided</scope>
       </dependency>
-
       <!-- lucene -->
       <dependency>
         <groupId>org.apache.lucene</groupId>
@@ -390,7 +371,6 @@
         <version>1.2</version>
         <scope>provided</scope>
       </dependency>
-
       <!-- pig-lucene -->
       <!-- jline is needed for PigServer which is used in integration tests -->
       <dependency>
@@ -399,7 +379,6 @@
         <version>0.9.94</version>
         <scope>test</scope>
       </dependency>
-
       <!-- mahout -->
       <dependency>
         <groupId>org.apache.mahout</groupId>
@@ -416,10 +395,8 @@
         <artifactId>mahout-math</artifactId>
         <version>${apache.mahout.version}</version>
       </dependency>
-
     </dependencies>
   </dependencyManagement>
-
   <profiles>
     <profile>
       <id>hadoop2</id>
@@ -449,7 +426,6 @@
       </properties>
     </profile>
   </profiles>
-
   <build>
     <defaultGoal>package</defaultGoal>
     <plugins>
@@ -492,7 +468,6 @@
     </plugins>
     <pluginManagement>
       <plugins>
-
         <!-- core -->
         <plugin>
           <artifactId>maven-clean-plugin</artifactId>
@@ -537,17 +512,17 @@
             <redirectTestOutputToFile>true</redirectTestOutputToFile>
             <systemPropertyVariables>
               <test.build.data>${basedir}/target/tests/data</test.build.data>
-              <log4j.configuration> <!-- required when log4j is included (pig tests) -->
+              <log4j.configuration><!-- required when log4j is included (pig tests) -->
                 file:${basedir}/../pig/src/test/resources/test-log4j.properties
               </log4j.configuration>
             </systemPropertyVariables>
-            <environmentVariables> <!-- for OSX 10.7+ -->
-                <DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH>${test.library.path}</DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH>
+            <environmentVariables>
+              <!-- for OSX 10.7+ -->
+              <DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH>${test.library.path}</DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH>
             </environmentVariables>
             <argLine>-Djava.library.path=${test.library.path}</argLine>
           </configuration>
         </plugin>
-
         <!-- package types -->
         <plugin>
           <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
@@ -557,7 +532,6 @@
           <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
           <version>2.2</version>
         </plugin>
-
         <!-- reporting -->
         <plugin>
           <artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
@@ -567,7 +541,6 @@
           <artifactId>maven-project-info-reports-plugin</artifactId>
           <version>2.4</version>
         </plugin>
-
         <!-- tools -->
         <plugin>
           <artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
@@ -601,7 +574,6 @@
           <artifactId>build-helper-maven-plugin</artifactId>
           <version>1.9.1</version>
         </plugin>
-
         <!-- protobuf -->
         <plugin>
           <groupId>com.github.igor-petruk.protobuf</groupId>
@@ -611,7 +583,6 @@
             <protocCommand>${protoc.executable}</protocCommand>
           </configuration>
         </plugin>
-
         <!-- thrift -->
         <plugin>
           <groupId>org.apache.thrift.tools</groupId>
@@ -621,12 +592,10 @@
             <thriftExecutable>${thrift.executable}</thriftExecutable>
           </configuration>
         </plugin>
-
         <!-- This plugin's configuration is used to store Eclipse M2E plugin
              settings only. It has no influence on the Maven build itself. The
              configuration below is required to resolve build errors reported by
              M2E plugin. -->
-
         <plugin>
           <groupId>org.eclipse.m2e</groupId>
           <artifactId>lifecycle-mapping</artifactId>
@@ -644,7 +613,7 @@
                     </goals>
                   </pluginExecutionFilter>
                   <action>
-                    <ignore />
+                    <ignore/>
                   </action>
                 </pluginExecution>
                 <pluginExecution>
@@ -657,7 +626,7 @@
                     </goals>
                   </pluginExecutionFilter>
                   <action>
-                    <ignore />
+                    <ignore/>
                   </action>
                 </pluginExecution>
                 <pluginExecution>
@@ -670,7 +639,7 @@
                     </goals>
                   </pluginExecutionFilter>
                   <action>
-                    <ignore />
+                    <ignore/>
                   </action>
                 </pluginExecution>
                 <pluginExecution>
@@ -684,18 +653,16 @@
                     </goals>
                   </pluginExecutionFilter>
                   <action>
-                    <ignore />
+                    <ignore/>
                   </action>
                 </pluginExecution>
               </pluginExecutions>
             </lifecycleMappingMetadata>
           </configuration>
         </plugin>
-
       </plugins>
     </pluginManagement>
   </build>
-
   <modules>
     <module>cascading2</module>
     <module>crunch</module>
@@ -709,5 +676,4 @@
     <module>pig-lucene</module>
     <module>examples</module>
   </modules>
-
 </project>
diff --git a/rcfile/pom.xml b/rcfile/pom.xml
index ada9bf8be..71ec96339 100644
--- a/rcfile/pom.xml
+++ b/rcfile/pom.xml
@@ -4,14 +4,12 @@
   <parent>
     <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>
     <artifactId>elephant-bird</artifactId>
-    <version>4.11rc2-SNAPSHOT</version>
+    <version>4.12</version>
     <relativePath>..</relativePath>
   </parent>
-
   <artifactId>elephant-bird-rcfile</artifactId>
   <name>Elephant Bird RCFile</name>
   <description>RCFile utilities.</description>
-
   <dependencies>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.twitter.elephantbird</groupId>