Cheers to the community on the successful release of Apache OpenOffice 4.0.  Full details of release can be found in our Release Notes.  You can download Apache OpenOffice 4.0 here.

This was a major release and a major effort for the many volunteers who worked on coding, testing, translation, support, marketing, documentation and other aspects of the project.  And thanks are due to ongoing support from other parts of the Apache Software Foundation, especially the Apache Infrastructure Team for their outsized effort to support our outsized project. 

It is summertime, at least for volunteers in the northern hemisphere,  and August is vacation time.  Many of us will be taking a break and enjoying time with friends and family.  But then we'll be back and working at full force, with a focus on:

• Bringing additional language translations to AOO 4.0.  There are quite a few languages that are "almost done", but did not make it into this release.  But rather than wait until 4.1 we'll release these languages, in batches, as they become available.   Tentatively we're aiming for mid-September for the first batch.  If you want to help with a particular translation, we'd love to hear from you.
  
• Apache OpenOffice 4.1.  We've jotted down some proposed ideas on our wiki.  We now need to turn that into a plan, ideally for a 4.1 release at the end of 2013.

Finally, as we transition from one major release to another, this is a great time for new volunteers in all areas to join the project.   If you are interested helping us make the next great version of OpenOffice, then we want to hear from you.  We're not only programmers, but are a community of testers, UI designers, web designers, technical writers, accessibility experts, translators, social media experts, etc.    Volunteers in all areas are welcome.   More information can be found on our Get Involved page.