Title:     Get Involved
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## Why get involved with the OpenOffice 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 you 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](http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/mailing-lists.html)
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](http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/orientation/index.html) 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](https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OOOUSERS/Help+Wanted) page of the wiki.