I don't understand why he says semantic versioning does not work. In my experience (with NPM, not maven) it is very useful, adding meaning of intent by convention:
Given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, increment the:
MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes,
MINOR version when you add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner, and
PATCH version when you make backwards-compatible bug fixes.
I got the impression that the issue was maven not being able to handle multiple versions of the same package/artifact, not in the convention.
Given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, increment the: MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes, MINOR version when you add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner, and PATCH version when you make backwards-compatible bug fixes.
I got the impression that the issue was maven not being able to handle multiple versions of the same package/artifact, not in the convention.