What does <fork>true</fork> means in pom.xml while using maven?
<p>I am using maven 3.3.3. and I have  <code>&lt;fork&gt;true&lt;/fork&gt;</code>. I ran into issues(MojoException) and fixed it by commenting out </p>

<pre><code> &lt;fork&gt;true&lt;/fork&gt;
 &lt;compilerVersion&gt;${java.version}&lt;/compilerVersion&gt;
</code></pre>

<p>My project was using Java 1.6 and java.version in above line refers to 1.6, but my computer environment variables was 1.7 and maven 3.3.3 needs Java 1.7 . Now my issues are fixed. </p>

<p>But I am not able to understand 
1) what does fork mean here?
2) What does it do?
3) Having it set to true or false, what changes it?</p>

<p>I went through the documentation, but it is hard to follow. Thanks.</p>