diff --git a/.travis-settings.xml b/.travis-settings.xml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..6e86c155f0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.travis-settings.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+<settings xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0"
+  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
+  xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0
+                      http://maven.apache.org/xsd/settings-1.0.0.xsd">
+  <localRepository/>
+  <interactiveMode/>
+  <usePluginRegistry/>
+  <offline/>
+  <pluginGroups/>
+  <servers>
+    <server>
+      <id>sonatype-nexus-snapshots</id>
+      <username>${env.CI_DEPLOY_USERNAME}</username>
+      <password>${env.CI_DEPLOY_PASSWORD}</password>
+    </server>
+  </servers>
+  <mirrors/>
+  <proxies/>
+  <profiles/>
+  <activeProfiles/>
+</settings>
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 5bf16bac50..04a7b77432 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -1,9 +1,14 @@
 language: java
 script: mvn -q clean install
 jdk:
-  - openjdk6
-  - openjdk7
-  - oraclejdk7
+- openjdk7
+- oraclejdk7
+matrix:
+  # override script for jdk 6 to push snapshots to sonatype
+  include:
+    - jdk: openjdk6
+      script: mvn -q clean deploy --settings .travis-settings.xml -Dno.gem.deploy=true
+
 # whitelist
 branches:
   only:
@@ -15,3 +20,7 @@ notifications:
   irc:
     - "irc.freenode.org#cucumber"
     
+env:
+  global:
+  - secure: 'INSERT OUTPUT FROM [travis encrypt -r cucumber/cucumber-jvm "CI_DEPLOY_USERNAME=<sonatype-username>"] HERE'
+  - secure: 'INSERT OUTPUT FROM [travis encrypt -r cucumber/cucumber-jvm "CI_DEPLOY_PASSWORD=<sonatype-password>"] HERE'
diff --git a/jruby/pom.xml b/jruby/pom.xml
index 24f0e3b151..93a9ba24cb 100644
--- a/jruby/pom.xml
+++ b/jruby/pom.xml
@@ -171,7 +171,7 @@ gherkin.I18n.all.each { i18n ->
                         <id>deploy-gem</id>
                         <phase>deploy</phase>
                         <configuration>
-                            <target>
+                            <target unless="no.gem.deploy">
                                 <!-- install the jruby-openssl gem first! -->
                                 <echo message="installing jruby-openssl..." />
                                 <java jar="${maven.dependency.org.jruby.jruby-complete.jar.path}" failonerror="true" fork="true">