Is it possible for a child POM to inherit profiles defined in the parent POM? If so, how?
Profiles defined in a parent POM are inherited in a child POM extending the parent, there is nothing to do. And just in case, the Maven Help Plugin has very useful goals allowing to deal with profiles:
help:active-profiles
: lists the profiles which are currently active for the build.help:all-profiles
: lists the available profiles under the current project.