A new version of Apache OpenOffice is in its final stages of preparation and the project has requested help for tasks associated with its release.

The blog post about the fact that Apache OpenOffice 4.1.2 is coming soon, dated Sunday Sep 27, 2015 coincided with the 5th anniversary of the fork of the OpenOffice.org that led to LibreOffice.

LibreOffice has made so much progress since the split (it has reached version 4.4.5 on its Still branch and 5.0.2 on the Fresh branch, both of which are stable) that a recent open letter to the Apache OpenOffice team argued that the project should bow out and redirect potential users to LibreOffice instead - see Should OpenOffice Be Closed? 

While not mentioning it specifically, this blog post appears to be a response in that it opens with the statement:

A new OpenOffice update, version 4.1.2, has been in preparation for a while. Born as a simple bugfix release, it became an occasion for some deep restructuring in the project: several processes have now been streamlined (and some are still in the works), new people are on board and infrastructure has been improved.

It also states:

Dozens of new and old developers contributed in recent weeks.

Referring to what can be expected in the new version the post lists:

• For users, improvements are expected in stability (fixes in all modules: Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base), Microsoft interoperability (Sharepoint) and documents import.
  
  
• For developers, OpenOffice 4.1.2 is designed to be easier to build on modern systems and on non-mainstream systems, thus respecting the Apache OpenOffice mission of providing a solid codebase that people can adapt and customize.

The help that is now required to get to finalize the new release is with Q&A testing and other development tasks such as translation of release notes and press releases. Details of how to volunteer are provided in the blog post.

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