diff --git a/build.xml b/build.xml
index 3d406575..ad0a7f70 100644
--- a/build.xml
+++ b/build.xml
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@
 
   <property name="Name" value="Facebook's unified version of Apache Hadoop"/>
   <property name="name" value="hadoop"/>
-  <property name="version" value="0.20.1-dev"/>
+  <property name="version" value="0.20"/>
   <property name="final.name" value="${name}-${version}"/>
   <property name="year" value="2009"/>
 
@@ -203,15 +203,15 @@
   <property name="common.ivy.lib.dir" location="${build.ivy.lib.dir}/${ant.project.name}/common"/>
   <property name="build.ivy.report.dir" location="${build.ivy.dir}/report" />
   <property name="build.ivy.maven.dir" location="${build.ivy.dir}/maven" />
-  <property name="build.ivy.maven.pom" location="${build.ivy.maven.dir}/hadoop-core-${hadoop.version}.pom" />
-  <property name="build.ivy.maven.jar" location="${build.ivy.maven.dir}/hadoop-core-${hadoop.version}.jar" />
+  <property name="build.ivy.maven.pom" location="${build.ivy.maven.dir}/hadoop-core-${version}.pom" />
+  <property name="build.ivy.maven.jar" location="${build.ivy.maven.dir}/hadoop-core-${version}.jar" />
 
   <!--this is the naming policy for artifacts we want pulled down-->
   <property name="ivy.artifact.retrieve.pattern" value="${ant.project.name}/[conf]/[artifact]-[revision].[ext]"/>
 
   <!--this is how artifacts that get built are named-->
   <property name="ivy.publish.pattern" value="hadoop-[revision]-core.[ext]"/>
-  <property name="hadoop.jar" location="${build.dir}/hadoop-${hadoop.version}-core.jar" />
+  <property name="hadoop.jar" location="${build.dir}/hadoop-${version}-core.jar" />
 
   <!-- jdiff.home property set -->
   <property name="jdiff.home" value="${build.ivy.lib.dir}/${ant.project.name}/jdiff"/>
@@ -1945,7 +1945,7 @@
     <ivy:publish
       settingsRef="${ant.project.name}.ivy.settings"
       resolver="local"
-      pubrevision="${hadoop.version}"
+      pubrevision="${version}"
       overwrite="true"
       artifactspattern="${build.dir}/${ivy.publish.pattern}" />
   </target>
@@ -2040,5 +2040,9 @@
     </exec>
   </target>
   <!-- end of task-controller target -->
+
+  <target name="print-version">
+    <echo message="${version}" />
+  </target>
 </project>
 
diff --git a/copy-hdfs-jars-to-maven.sh b/copy-hdfs-jars-to-maven.sh
index 7ffdf8f1..6ee632d2 100755
--- a/copy-hdfs-jars-to-maven.sh
+++ b/copy-hdfs-jars-to-maven.sh
@@ -5,52 +5,52 @@
 # and test) built in titan/VENDOR/hadoop-0.20/.
 #
 
+set -e -u -o pipefail
 BASEDIR=`dirname $0`
 cd ${BASEDIR}
 
-if [ ! -f build/hadoop-0.20.1-dev-core.jar ]; then
- if [ ! -f build/hadoop-0.20-core.jar ]; then
-  echo "core jar not found. Running 'ant jar'..."
-  ant jar | grep BUILD;
- fi
+VERSION=$( ant -q print-version | head -1 | awk '{print $2}' )
+if [ -z "$VERSION" ]; then
+  echo "Unable to determine Hadoop version" >&2
+  exit 1
 fi
 
-if [ ! -f build/hadoop-0.20.1-dev-test.jar ]; then
- if [ ! -f build/hadoop-0.20-test.jar ]; then
-   echo "test jar not found. Running 'ant jar-test'..."
-   ant jar-test | grep BUILD;
- fi
+TARGETS=""
+
+CORE_JAR=build/hadoop-$VERSION-core.jar
+if [ ! -f $CORE_JAR ]; then
+  TARGETS="$TARGETS jar"
 fi
 
+CORE_POM=build/ivy/maven/generated.pom
+if [ ! -f $CORE_POM ]; then
+  TARGETS="$TARGETS makepom"
+fi
 
-#
-# The names of core/test jar name depend
-# on whether they were generated using 
-# build_all.sh script or just the vanilla
-# simple ant jar/jar-test
-#
-if [ -f build/hadoop-0.20.1-dev-core.jar ]; then
-  CORE_JAR=build/hadoop-0.20.1-dev-core.jar
-else
-  CORE_JAR=build/hadoop-0.20-core.jar
+TEST_JAR=build/hadoop-$VERSION-test.jar
+if [ ! -f $TEST_JAR ]; then
+  TARGETS="$TARGETS jar-test"
 fi
 
-if [ -f build/hadoop-0.20.1-dev-test.jar ]; then
-  TEST_JAR=build/hadoop-0.20.1-dev-test.jar
-else
-  TEST_JAR=build/hadoop-0.20-test.jar
+if [ -n "$TARGETS" ]; then
+  ant $TARGETS
 fi
 
+# Clear the optional flag on Hadoop dependencies so these dependencies can be
+# included transitively in other projects.
+CORE_POM_MODIFIED=$CORE_POM.new
+./edit_generated_pom.py >$CORE_POM_MODIFIED
+
 echo "** Publishing hadoop* core & test jars "
 echo "** to "
 echo "**   your local maven repo (~/.m2/repository). "
 echo "** HBase builds will  pick up the HDFS* jars from the local maven repo."
 
 mvn install:install-file \
-    -DgeneratePom=true \
+    -DpomFile=$CORE_POM_MODIFIED \
     -DgroupId=org.apache.hadoop \
     -DartifactId=hadoop-core \
-    -Dversion=0.20 \
+    -Dversion=$VERSION \
     -Dpackaging=jar \
     -Dfile=${CORE_JAR}
 
@@ -58,6 +58,7 @@ mvn install:install-file \
     -DgeneratePom=true \
     -DgroupId=org.apache.hadoop \
     -DartifactId=hadoop-test \
-    -Dversion=0.20 \
+    -Dversion=$VERSION \
     -Dpackaging=jar \
     -Dfile=${TEST_JAR}
+
diff --git a/edit_generated_pom.py b/edit_generated_pom.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..c2f88d39
--- /dev/null
+++ b/edit_generated_pom.py
@@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+
+'''
+Reads the automatically generated Hadoop pom file, removes the "optional"
+flag from dependencies so that they could be included transitively into other
+projects such as HBase, and removes certain dependencies that are not required
+and could even break the code (e.g. an old version of xerces). Writes the
+modified project object model XML to standard output.
+'''
+
+import os
+import re
+import sys
+
+from xml.dom.minidom import parse
+
+NON_TRANSITIVE_DEPS = [
+    # Old version, breaks HBase
+    'xerces',
+
+    # Not used in production
+    'checkstyle',
+    'jdiff',
+
+    # A release audit tool, probably not used in prod
+    'rat-lib',
+]
+
+POM_FILE = 'build/ivy/maven/generated.pom'
+doc = parse(POM_FILE)
+deps = doc.getElementsByTagName('dependencies')[0]
+
+for dep in deps.getElementsByTagName('dependency'):
+    for c in dep.childNodes:
+        if (c.nodeName == 'artifactId' and
+            c.firstChild and
+            c.firstChild.nodeValue and
+            c.firstChild.nodeValue.strip() in NON_TRANSITIVE_DEPS):
+            deps.removeChild(dep)
+            break
+
+    for o in dep.getElementsByTagName('optional'):
+        dep.removeChild(o)
+
+out_lines = doc.toprettyxml(indent=' ' * 2)
+lines = []
+for l in out_lines.split('\n'):
+    l = l.rstrip()
+    if l:
+        lines.append(l)
+output = '\n'.join(lines)
+
+# Make sure values stay on the same line: <element>value</element>
+output = re.sub(
+    r'(<([a-zA-Z]+)>)'
+    r'\s*([^<>]+?)\s*'
+    r'(</\2>)', r'\1\3\4', output)
+
+print output
+