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Get Involved

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Why get involved with the OpenOffice project?

Although many are content to make a small donation to support Apache OpenOffice and the Apache Software Foundation (we appreciate every contribution), some users want to get more involved and volunteer their time and expertise with the project.
There are many motivations for why volunteers participate in an open source project like OpenOffice. Some of the more common ones include:

• To help reduce the "digital divide" by ensuring continued access to free high-quality free productivity applications world-wide.
• To help bring the benefits of OpenOffice to your country or region
• To "give back" to open source
• To learn or practice a new skill
• To enhance a résumé or portfolio, showcasing the work you've done in this project
• To support a customer or other commercial venture that relies on OpenOffice
• To develop credentials for consulting work related to OpenOffice
• To bring something to OpenOffice that you've always wanted to see done
• To have fun, working with a close-knit international team of volunteers working on one of the oldest and most famous open source projects around.

A multidisciplinary open source project

You don't need to be a programmer to contribute to Apache OpenOffice. Our project involves a large range of different skills, levels of involvement and degrees of technical expertise. So, if you want to get involved in Apache OpenOffice, there is almost certainly a role for you.

We are looking for people to:

• Write or update documentation
• Help support new users
• Test the program and report bugs
• Fix bugs
• Code new features
• Design artwork and other marketing materials
• Translate to different languages
• Maintain the website and develop new materials
• Promote OpenOffice and help explain its benefits
• anything you can see that needs doing

All of these contributions help to keep a project active and strengthen the community. We welcome and encourage participation, and try to make it as easy as possible for people to get involved.

How to get started

OpenOffice is a large, complex open source project, with a culture developed over many years as an independent project, combined with our experience at Apache.

If you are familiar with Apache-style open source development then you might just jump in. Subscribe to a relevant project mailing list and introduce yourself. We'll help you get started.

If, however, you are new to Apache, or want a more methodical approach to getting started, then we have a set of graduated New Volunteer Orientation Modules designed for new volunteers that takes you through a number of background topics related to Apache OpenOffice and how we do things.

Which path you take is up to you and is a matter of personal preference. You can even do both.

We also maintain a list of specific areas where we need volunteers on our Help Wanted page of the wiki.

If you are a student, looking to contribute to the project as part of your school work, please also see our Advice for Students page.