diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index a6a84e6..fe0f552 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@
   <name>commit-message-length-validator</name>
   <groupId>com.googlesource.gerrit.plugins.validators</groupId>
   <packaging>jar</packaging>
-  <version>2.8</version>
+  <version>2.9-SNAPSHOT</version>
 
   <properties>
     <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
@@ -56,8 +56,8 @@
         <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
         <version>2.3.2</version>
         <configuration>
-          <source>1.6</source>
-          <target>1.6</target>
+          <source>1.7</source>
+          <target>1.7</target>
           <encoding>UTF-8</encoding>
         </configuration>
       </plugin>