Start 2.20 branch; update 2.x to 2.21

Author: cowtowncoder

pom.xml

@@ -8,13 +8,13 @@
   <parent>
     <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson</groupId>
     <artifactId>jackson-base</artifactId>
-    <version>2.20.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
+    <version>2.21.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
   </parent>
 
   <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
   <artifactId>jackson-core</artifactId>
   <name>Jackson-core</name>
-  <version>2.20.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
+  <version>2.21.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
   <packaging>jar</packaging>
   <description>Core Jackson processing abstractions (aka Streaming API), implementation for JSON</description>
   <licenses>

release-notes/VERSION-2.x

@@ -14,6 +14,10 @@ a pure JSON library.
 === Releases ===
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
+2.21.0 (not yet released)
+
+No changes since 2.20
+
 2.20.0 (28-Aug-2025)
 
 #1438: `ParserBase.close()` does not clear `_currToken`