A repository metadata model

If you go to http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/, you will find a file called maven-metadata.xml. As shown in the following code snippet, the file lists out the available plugins under http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/.

<metadata>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <name>Maven XBean Plugin</name>
      <prefix>xbean</prefix>
      <artifactId>maven-xbean-plugin</artifactId>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</metadata>

If you go to http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/axis2, you will again find a similar file maven-metadata.xml under it. This too lists out all the available plugins under http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/axis2.

If you go to http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/axis2/axis2-kernel/, you will see a slightly different maven-metadata.xml, as shown in the following code snippet. This lists out the metadata corresponding to the Maven artifact under that directory...