Support: version="${poject.version}" date="${buildDate}"

Currently the plugin requires a release version which is equal to $

{poject.version} without "-SNAPSHOT".
Currently the changes.xml doesn't get filtered.

The actual version is only known when you do a relase (e.g. using the Maven Release Plugin).
It's then when you specify if you change e.g. from version 1.1.2 to 1.1.3 or 1.2.0
Keeping this in sync with the changes.xml is currently a manual process which has to be done immediatly before releasing and is thus very error prone (especially if you're releasing every day or every other day in a hot phase of the project)!

For this reason
<release version="${poject.version}

"...
should be supported.

The same is true for the release date. You only know the exact date, when you're actually releasing.

Consider to provide the property $

{buildDate}.

Provide a hook into the Maven Release Plugin, to add a new release element (after tagging, when the version gets updated to the next SNAPSHOT version):
<release version="${poject.version}" date="${buildDate}

" description="Subsequent release">

</release>