I'm struggling through the same issues.
It's not ideal; but when the official Maven repository doesn't contain a file you need, it is still possible to build.
You can obtain a copy of the right version of the right file by downloading normally.
The maven2 install:install-file goal will copy the jar file into your local Maven 2 repository, putting it in the right place with the right name.
One example of this is on my blog:
http://howardlewisship.com/blog/2006/01 ... n-api.html
I got the 3.1.0.beta2 distro of hibernate tools and extracted the hibernate-tools.jar to a temporary directory.
bash-3.00$ mvn install:install-file -Dfile=hibernate-tools.jar -DgroupId=org.hibernate -DartifactId=hibernate-tools -Dversion=3.1.0.beta2 -Dpackaging=jar
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO] Searching repository for plugin with prefix: 'install'.
[INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building ePluribus Sample Application
[INFO] task-segment: [install:install-file] (aggregator-style)
[INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] [install:install-file]
[INFO] Installing c:\workspace\epluribus\hibernate-tools.jar to C:\Documents and Settings\Howard\.m2\repository\org\hibe
rnate\hibernate-tools\3.1.0.beta2\hibernate-tools-3.1.0.beta2.jar
[INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESSFUL
[INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: < 1 second
[INFO] Finished at: Tue Jan 17 10:58:42 PST 2006
[INFO] Final Memory: 2M/4M
[INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
bash-3.00$
I'm still struggling to get the rest working; there's some kind of incompatibility between the tools and the version of Hibernate I'm using.