Minor pom enhancements

pom.xml

@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@
 
     <properties>
         <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
+        <jdk.version>1.7</jdk.version>
     </properties>
 
     <licenses>
@@ -66,8 +67,19 @@
                 <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                 <version>3.7.0</version>
                 <configuration>
-                    <source>1.7</source>
-                    <target>1.7</target>
+                    <source>${jdk.version}</source>
+                    <target>${jdk.version}</target>
+                </configuration>
+            </plugin>
+            <plugin>
+                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
+                <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
+                <version>2.20.1</version>
+                <configuration>
+                    <!-- No tests in this project atm -->
+                    <skip>true</skip>
+                    <!-- Force the right file encoding during unit testing -->
+                    <argLine>-Dfile.encoding=${project.build.sourceEncoding} @{argLine}</argLine>
                 </configuration>
             </plugin>
             <plugin>