Contents

Main Terms

• Artifact – An entity in a repository (e.g. junit-3.8.1.jar)
• Group – A logical collection of artifacts (e.g. junit)
• Repository – A physical collection of artifacts (local or remote, e.g. http://www.ibiblio.org/maven/)
• Version – A number representing a variant of an artifact. In most cases it is split into major, minor, and revision numbers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number)
  • Major – describes a change in the API of the artifact, there is no guarantee that the API is still compatible with other versions with a different major
  • Minor – describes a change in the API of the artifact, the API is still compatible to other versions with the same major
  • Revision – mostly small fixes and additions of the API
    

Subsequent Terms

• Hierarchical Repository – A repository with groups
• Flat Repository – A repository where artifacts from all groups are at the same level