LibreOffice Developers Invite Users to Join Bug Hunting Session

Individuals looking for a way to contribute to a popular open-source software project will get their chance on July 6 when LibreOffice holds its last bug hunting session before version 6.1 gets released. 6.1’s launch has already spawned a pair of other bug hunting sessions on April 27 and then another about one month later. The final release should be sometime in the middle of August.

All users who’d like to participate will be asked to work with the first full release candidate edition of LibreOffice 6.1, which should be available on the pre-release server the day the event is held.
Prebuilt binary packages for macOS and Microsoft Windows will be alongside ones for GNU/Linux since users from all different platforms are being asked to contribute bug reports. Both DEB and RPM bundles will get uploaded that day, so users with distros based on apt-get and yum are both invited to join in.

Mentors should be on hand to answer questions and offer help on the official #libreoffice-qa IRC channel. Developers have already made sure that there’s a webchat version as well as a Telegram bridge for the channel, so there shouldn’t be any communications problems as the event unfolds.

A session dedicated to testing the new offline help system will also get instantiated on July 6, which should help to ensure that documentation is up to par before version 6.1 gets launched. While many GNU/Linux users are comfortable using a manual pager, LibreOffice has a broad appeal that ensures it will get deployed in many business and educational environments.

These sorts of environments demand a more user-friendly approach to documentation browsing, so this part of the event will probably every bit as important as any of the other aspects connected to bug testing.

Those who would like to help but won’t be able to spend a day in front of their workstations on July 6 can still help out. Builds marked as 6.1.0 RC 1 will continue to be available until the end of the month, and users are always invited to submit bug reports if they find anything while they’re testing the software bundle out.