Sure, I typically use the service-ext.properties to change my build number to 1. That way the management of the deployment of the service jar is all my responsibility, and I'm fine with that. I'm usually only adding new entities/methods, so existing entities/methods don't change and the build version for me is a roadblock, not a tool.

To do this for yourself, in the same directory as your service.properties file, create a service-ext.properties file and just add a line "build.number=1". This overrides whatever value is in service.properties, so you're effectively disabling the build.number handling.

Again, this means you're taking over responsibility for managing the service jar deployment. If not done correctly, you'll get weird errors at runtime that are harder to diagnose than the simple "build number is newer" error check that Liferay normally does (things like class not found or method missing exceptions).