SPR-6752 - RestTemplate throws IllegalArgumentException when HTTP status is not in the HttpStatus enum 

relaxed generic Class declaration in HttpMessageConverter's canRead/canWrite/read signatures (SPR-6848)

store a static WebApplicationContext reference if the Spring jars get deployed in the same web application as the ContextLoader (SPR-5652)

@SessionAttributes works when used on an annotated controller interface with AOP proxying (SPR-6797)

+ externalize some of the jar versions
+ align the versions of some dependencies between pom.xml and ivy.xml

SPR-6788 - The class MediaType has a natural ordering that is inconsistent with equals, which is generally recommended or should otherwise at least be indicated in the javadoc

SPR-6786 - The method org.springframework.http.MediaType.parseMediaType  does not always throw IllegalArgumentException as the documentantion claims

SPR-6788 - The class MediaType has a natural ordering that is inconsistent with equals, which is generally recommended or should otherwise at least be indicated in the javadoc

SPR-6788 - The class MediaType has a natural ordering that is inconsistent with equals, which is generally recommended or should otherwise at least be indicated in the javadoc

Updated documentation to point out that AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext can accept both fully-qualified class names as well as base packages to the contextConfigLocation init-param.

reintroduced createBinder template method in Servlet/Portlet AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter (SPR-6534)

Renamed tests for AnnotationConfig[Web]ApplicationContext; added tests for scan() and register() methods.

opened up RestTemplate method signatures to Map<String, ?> and Object array instead of enforcing String values

SPR-5327: tweak the ivy.xml so that commons-logging is a separate configuration.  It already comes out as optional in the generated poms (including core), which isn't great, but I can't see what is causing that

RestTemplate now registers JAXB2 and Jackson by default, if found on the classpath.