The answer to this question depends on your own perspective. The great majority of Maven users are going to call Maven a “build tool”: a tool used to build deployable artifacts from source code. Build engineers and project managers might refer to Maven as something more comprehensive: a project management tool. What is the difference? A build tool such as Ant is focused solely on preprocessing, compilation, packaging, testing, and distribution. A project management tool such as Maven provides a superset of features found in a build tool. In addition to providing build capabilities, Maven can also run reports, generate a web site, and facilitate communication among members of a working team.

Here is a more formal definition of Apache Maven: Maven is a project management tool that encompasses a Project Object Model, a set of standards, a project lifecycle, a dependency management system, and logic for executing plugin goals at defined phases in a lifecycle. When you use Maven, you describe your project using a well-defined Project Object Model, Maven can then apply cross-cutting logic from a set of shared (or custom) plugins.

Don’t let the fact that Maven is a “project management” tool scare you away. If you are just looking for a build tool, Maven will do the job. In fact, the first few chapters of Part II will deal with the most common use case: using Maven to build and distribute your project.

This book follows certain conventions for font usage. Understanding these conventions upfront makes it easier to use this book:

The book follows certain conventions for naming and font usage in relation to Apache Maven. Understanding these conventions upfront makes it easier to read this book:

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Sonatype would like to thank the following contributors who have provided feedback that improved the quality of this book. Thanks to Chad Gorshing, Marcus Biel, Brian Dols, Mangalaganesh Balasubramanian, Marius Kruger, and Mark Stewart. Special thanks to Joel Costigliola for helping debug and correct the Spring web chapter. Stan Guillory was practically a contributing author given the number of corrections he posted to the book’s Get Satisfaction page. Thank you, Stan. Special thanks to Richard Coasby of Bamboo for acting as the provisional grammar consultant.

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Thanks to all of the authors, especially Bruce Snyder, Brian Fox, John Casey, Jason van Zyl, and Eugene Kuleshov. Everyone at Sonatype played a part in the content of this book, and everyone worked together to help us create a foundation for this documentation.

Thanks to all of our contributing authors, especially Eric Redmond.

Tim O’Brien would like to thank his perfect wife, Susan, and child, Josephine.