I'm a beginner I'm using M2eclipse, I've account for my project @ sourceforge. connection to sourceforge is established and I use SVN repository. Now I was introduced to MAVEN when I firstly tried to look for version numbering facility.
I liked maven structure but I don't fully understand its goal is it just for releases ?
How do you think I would make best use of maven and sourceforge ?
Do I have to use maven repository (upload my project release there) and upload everything including the release to sourceforge ?
What else would make my steps of building my open source project be professional ?
Sourceforge/SVN is the source control management system. Maven is the build system to manage dependencies of your modules and to 3rd party libraries (which reside in the maven repositories).
Both tools are important to professional projects. The maven project structure reflects the standard conventions from oracle (see the oracle docu). Using this project structure enables others understand and contribute to your project easier.
Uploading to the maven repository is recommended if you have kind of a framework/library project, which gets included by others. Other projects may host the final release on sourceforge only.
Other steps/ingredients for professional software projects: