diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index e4e623f03b..d33051f57f 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -1,34 +1,6 @@
 language: java
 before_install:
-  - date
-  - sudo apt-get update -qq
-  - sudo apt-get install build-essential
-  - sudo apt-get install pv
-  - date
-  - mkdir protobuf_install
-  - pushd protobuf_install
-  - wget https://github.com/google/protobuf/archive/v3.5.1.tar.gz -O protobuf-3.5.1.tar.gz
-  - tar xzf protobuf-3.5.1.tar.gz
-  - cd protobuf-3.5.1
-  - sudo apt-get install autoconf automake libtool curl make g++ unzip
-  - ./autogen.sh
-  - ./configure
-  - make
-  - sudo make install
-  - sudo ldconfig
-  - protoc --version
-  - popd
-  - date
-  - pwd
-  - sudo apt-get install -qq libboost-dev libboost-test-dev libboost-program-options-dev libevent-dev automake libtool flex bison pkg-config g++ libssl-dev
-  - wget -nv http://archive.apache.org/dist/thrift/0.9.3/thrift-0.9.3.tar.gz
-  - tar zxf thrift-0.9.3.tar.gz
-  - cd thrift-0.9.3
-  - chmod +x ./configure
-  - ./configure --disable-gen-erl --disable-gen-hs --without-ruby --without-haskell --without-erlang --without-php --without-nodejs
-  - sudo make install
-  - cd ..
-  - date
+  - bash dev/travis-before_install.sh
 
 env:
   - HADOOP_PROFILE=default TEST_CODECS=uncompressed,brotli
diff --git a/dev/travis-before_install-master.sh b/dev/travis-before_install-master.sh
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..2c865ce30f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/dev/travis-before_install-master.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+# distributed with this work for additional information
+# regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+# software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+# "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+# KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+# specific language governing permissions and limitations
+# under the License.
+
+################################################################################
+# This is a branch-specific script that gets invoked at the end of
+# travis-before_install.sh. It is run for the master branch only.
+################################################################################
+
+fail_the_build=
+reduced_pom="$(tempfile)"
+shopt -s globstar # Enables ** to match files in subdirectories recursively
+for pom in **/pom.xml
+do
+  # Removes the project/version and project/parent/version elements, because
+  # those are allowed to have SNAPSHOT in them. Also removes comments.
+  xmlstarlet ed -N pom='http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0' \
+             -d '/pom:project/pom:version|/pom:project/pom:parent/pom:version|//comment()' "$pom" > "$reduced_pom"
+  if grep -q SNAPSHOT "$reduced_pom"
+  then
+    if [[ ! "$fail_the_build" ]]
+    then
+      printf "Error: POM files in the master branch can not refer to SNAPSHOT versions.\n"
+      fail_the_build=YES
+    fi
+    printf "\nOffending POM file: %s\nOffending content:\n" "$pom"
+    # Removes every element that does not have SNAPSHOT in it or its
+    # descendants. As a result, we get a skeleton of the POM file with only the
+    # offending parts.
+    xmlstarlet ed -d "//*[count((.|.//*)[contains(text(), 'SNAPSHOT')]) = 0]" "$reduced_pom"
+  fi
+done
+rm "$reduced_pom"
+if [[ "$fail_the_build" ]]
+then
+   exit 1
+fi
diff --git a/dev/travis-before_install.sh b/dev/travis-before_install.sh
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..6d0427972c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/dev/travis-before_install.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+# distributed with this work for additional information
+# regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+# software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+# "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+# KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+# specific language governing permissions and limitations
+# under the License.
+
+################################################################################
+# This script gets invoked by .travis.yml in the before_install step
+################################################################################
+
+set -e
+date
+sudo apt-get update -qq
+sudo apt-get install -qq build-essential pv autoconf automake libtool curl make \
+   g++ unzip libboost-dev libboost-test-dev libboost-program-options-dev \
+   libevent-dev automake libtool flex bison pkg-config g++ libssl-dev xmlstarlet
+date
+mkdir protobuf_install
+pushd protobuf_install
+wget https://github.com/google/protobuf/archive/v3.5.1.tar.gz -O protobuf-3.5.1.tar.gz
+tar xzf protobuf-3.5.1.tar.gz
+cd protobuf-3.5.1
+./autogen.sh
+./configure
+make
+sudo make install
+sudo ldconfig
+protoc --version
+popd
+date
+pwd
+wget -nv http://archive.apache.org/dist/thrift/0.9.3/thrift-0.9.3.tar.gz
+tar zxf thrift-0.9.3.tar.gz
+cd thrift-0.9.3
+chmod +x ./configure
+./configure --disable-gen-erl --disable-gen-hs --without-ruby --without-haskell --without-erlang --without-php --without-nodejs
+sudo make install
+cd ..
+branch_specific_script="dev/travis-before_install-${TRAVIS_BRANCH}.sh"
+if [[ -e "$branch_specific_script" ]]
+then
+  . "$branch_specific_script"
+fi
+date