So in the build section of the multimodule maven's project pom.xml (I included this in each module but it could just as easily been inherited)

<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<testFailureIgnore>true</testFailureIgnore>
</configuration>
</plugin>

This config changes mavens default behavior, causing it to continue to build multi-module projects even if a test fails in a maven module.

Hudson will not continue the build due to the junit reports plugin – it will mark the module unstable and ignore all other dependent modules in the maven2 project.

So
Parent Project
project A
project B

B depends on A, A is marked to ignore failures in it's pom file, A has a failing unit test, a commandline build will build all projects and report success. A hudson build will build the parent project and project A but not project B and report "Unstable".

Hudson needs an option in the multimodule build to ignore a module being marked "Unstable" and continue the build process.

P.S. I know this is very odd of a maven project, but this is a project currently being converted.

I will write a test this weekend, may attempt a patch as well