Untypical iText version required by JasperReports library

I tried to add jasper reports library (net.sf.jasperreports:jasperreports:5.2.0) as a maven dependency to my project , unfortunately one of it's dependencies com.lowagie:itext:2.1.7.js2 is a little bit untypical and cannot be located in maven central. I've found, however, that it's available at  http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/maven2/com/lowagie/itext/ .

My questions are:

1. What is the purpose of jaspersoft own build of iText (patches)?

2. Is it safe to use regular iText library, version 2.1.7 found in maven central repo?

Regards,

AD