Cross-reference Dedicated Spring Boot BOM for Consistent Resolution

All Spring Boot (actually all Spring projects, but let us start with Boot) modules should be collected in a dedicated Spring Boot BOM that is then cross-references by every module. This would in turn ensure consistent resolution of all dependencies within a dependency tree. Well, at least on Gradle. According to @wilkinsona this does not work in Maven, I do not know, but even if it is Gradle only it is providing substantial value.

This screenshot illustrates consistent resolution of Jackson dependencies. This is made possible by the Jackson developers because they cross-reference their own BOM in every module of theirs, e.g.:

https://github.com/FasterXML/jackson-annotations/blob/082ee2812f0a7019516181947e591d8ed624425a/pom.xml#L129-L137

The same is possible in Gradle, example build setup:

project(":bom") {
    apply<JavaPlatformPlugin>()
    dependencies {
        constraints {
            api(project(":a"))
            api(project(":b"))
        }
    }
}

project(":a") {
    apply<JavaLibraryPlugin>()
    dependencies {
        api(platform(project(":bom")))
    }
}

project(":b") {
    apply<JavaLibraryPlugin>()
    dependencies {
        api(platform(project(":bom")))
    }
}

I am happy to help with this if there is interest.

Start by examining the existing module and dependency-management setup, then compare it with the Gradle Java platform example in the issue. Determine how a dedicated Spring Boot BOM could be cross-referenced by each module and verify consistent dependency resolution; done means the approach works for the supported Gradle build without disrupting other dependency management.