[MNG-7559] Fix version comparison with case insensitive lexical order

[sultan]

This PR description was edited to reflect its latest status:

Recurring issues show that Maven’s current handling of qualifiers is incomplete, impacting multiple companies and users:

• mojohaus/versions#744
• https://github.com/apache/maven/issues/8891
• https://github.com/dependabot/dependabot-core/pull/6747
• https://github.com/dependabot/dependabot-core/pull/10207

These issues need to be addressed in Maven Resolver. I am working to encourage Maven to adopt a fix through this PR.

Proposed ordering:

• alpha < beta < milestone < pr = pre = preview < rc = cr < dev < snapshot < final = ga = release < sp

I edited the documentation to discourage the use of certain qualifiers:

• The use of pr, pre, preview is discouraged
• The use of cr is discouraged (use rc instead)
• The use of dev is discouraged
• The use of final, ga, release is discouraged (use no qualifier instead)
• The use of sp is discouraged (increment patch version instead)

Optional inclusions:

• ea (early access), edr, pfd (drafts), mr

As long as discouraged qualifiers continue to be used in practice, tools will still need to support them. Once they are phased out, however, support can be safely dropped.

Another possible direction would be:

• Partial SemVer2 support, which could simplify handling of qualifiers:
  • Accept the "+" char as a separator.
  • Temporarily treat discouraged qualifiers as follows (while discouraging their use when necessary):
    • latest pre-release: dev, snapshot
    • release: final, ga, release
    • post-release: sp
  • Treat all other qualifiers as pre-release without hard-coding them, reducing the number of special cases.
  • Use aliases/mapping:
    • a to alpha
    • b to beta
    • m to milestone
    • cr to rc
    • "final", "ga", "release" to ""
• Maven could force the build to fail if any module uses discouraged qualifiers.
• Maven Central could begin rejecting new artifacts using discouraged qualifiers.

Thanks for your input.

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