diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index c6864035ac4..f31639ff180 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -130,6 +130,9 @@ Release 0.23.3 - UNRELEASED
     HADOOP-8154. DNS#getIPs shouldn't silently return the local host
     IP for bogus interface names. (eli)
 
+    HADOOP-8169.  javadoc generation fails with java.lang.OutOfMemoryError:
+    Java heap space (tgraves via bobby)
+
   BREAKDOWN OF HADOOP-7454 SUBTASKS
 
     HADOOP-7455. HA: Introduce HA Service Protocol Interface. (suresh)
diff --git a/hadoop-project-dist/pom.xml b/hadoop-project-dist/pom.xml
index cb297f159ea..9bb39ede40b 100644
--- a/hadoop-project-dist/pom.xml
+++ b/hadoop-project-dist/pom.xml
@@ -114,6 +114,7 @@
         <artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
         <configuration>
           <linksource>true</linksource>
+          <maxmemory>512m</maxmemory>
           <quiet>true</quiet>
           <verbose>false</verbose>
           <source>${maven.compile.source}</source>