Any POM file can point to its parent POM. If the parent POM element is missing, then there is a system-wide POM file that is automatically treated as the parent POM file. This POM file is well known as the super POM. Ultimately, all the application POM files get extended from the super POM. The super POM file is at the top of the POM hierarchy, and it is bundled inside MAVEN_HOME/lib/maven-model-builder-3.2.3.jar - org/apache/maven/model/pom-4.0.0.xml. In Maven 2, this was bundled inside maven-2.X.X-uber.jar. All the default configurations are defined in the super POM file. Even the simplest form of a POM file will inherit all the configurations defined in the super POM file. Whatever configuration you need to override, you can do it by redefining the same section in your application POM file. The following lines of code show the super POM file configuration, which comes with Maven 3.2.3:

<project>
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

The Maven central is the only...