title: What is a POM on maven?
body: <p>I'm trying to follow the get started manual of maven, but I receive this error</p>
  
  <pre><code>c:\Ambiente\workspace&gt;mvn archetype:generate \ -DarchetypeGroupId=org.apache.maven.archety
  pes \ -DgroupId=com.mycompany.app \  -DartifactId=my-app -X
  Apache Maven 3.1.0 (893ca28a1da9d5f51ac03827af98bb730128f9f2; 2013-06-27 23:15:32-0300)
  Maven home: C:\Ambiente\apache-maven-3.1.0
  Java version: 1.7.0_25, vendor: Oracle Corporation
  Java home: C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_25\jre
  Default locale: pt_BR, platform encoding: Cp1252
  OS name: "windows 7", version: "6.1", arch: "x86", family: "windows"
  [INFO] Error stacktraces are turned on.
  [DEBUG] Reading global settings from C:\Ambiente\apache-maven-3.1.0\conf\settings.xml
  [DEBUG] Reading user settings from C:\Users\t316360\.m2\settings.xml
  [DEBUG] Using local repository at C:\Users\t316360\.m2\repository
  [DEBUG] Using manager EnhancedLocalRepositoryManager with priority 10.0 for C:\Users\t3163
  60\.m2\repository
  [INFO] Scanning for projects...
  [DEBUG] Extension realms for project org.apache.maven:standalone-pom:pom:1: (none)
  [DEBUG] Looking up lifecyle mappings for packaging pom from ClassRealm[plexus.core, parent
  : null]
  [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  [INFO] BUILD FAILURE
  [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  [INFO] Total time: 0.078s
  [INFO] Finished at: Mon Jul 22 17:23:03 BRT 2013
  [INFO] Final Memory: 11M/247M
  [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  [ERROR] The goal you specified requires a project to execute but there is no POM in this d
  irectory (c:\Ambiente\workspace). Please verify you invoked Maven from the correct directo
  ry. -&gt; [Help 1]
  org.apache.maven.lifecycle.MissingProjectException: The goal you specified requires a proj
  ect to execute but there is no POM in this directory (c:\Ambiente\workspace). Please verif
  y you invoked Maven from the correct directory.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>what is POM and what do I suppose to do to have this file?</p>