When I was taking some screenshots to illustrate the new features page for OpenOffice.org 3.1, I discovered a bug in the way that Chart handles missing values in certain circumstances. After a bit of testing, I convinced myself it was a genuine bug, and created a simple test Calc file to show the problem. I then filed a bug report.

As this wasn’t a particularly big issue in what was a new feature, I didn’t expect it to be a reason for delaying the release of 3.1. Maybe if I’d tested it sooner, it would have been fixed in 3.1 However, I was happy to receive emails from the developers, first of all confirming that they agreed it was a bug, and then shortly afterwards, telling me they had it fixed. You can follow the process via the bug tracking system.

So, the system is open, accessible, and it works. If you want to help OpenOffice.org, I’d encourage you to download the test versions and give them a try. Don’t assume you can just start using them for your everyday work – they may corrupt your documents – but do try them out, especially if you do something unusual with OpenOffice.org. If you find something odd, please report it – there are full details of how to do this in the QA project pages. Helping in the QA activity is a great way for ordinary folk to help the OpenOffice.org project!

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