To build the current Ontopia distribution run $ mvn clean install -Pontopia-distribution-tomcat from a terminal. The distribution can then be found in ontopia-distribution-tomcat/target/ontopia-distribution-tomcat-X.Y.Z-SNAPSHOT/ where X, Y and Z are the current development version numbers. Once you build the current Ontopia distribution you will probably want to play with the software. Everything you want will be inside the distribution you just built; the rest of the subversion checkout serves only to generate that distribution. You can find the documentation within the distribution under the 'doc' directory. If you're not already familiar with Ontopia, a good document to start with is the install.html in the doc directory of the build you're using. If you're just starting out, try starting the Tomcat server as described in section 4.3 of the install.html document, then in your Web browser navigate to http://localhost:8080/ -- the web-based applications listed there will give you plenty to do.