Product Release/Builds FAQ

Product Releases - Builds FAQ

What are software builds?

For an overview of how software is built, please see Wikipedia

What are the various builds of OOo and what are they for?

Name	What is it	Who is it for	Who is it not for	Cautions
Developer Snapshot	The very latest 'work in progress' build of OOo	Used by developers and testers to check code changes are performing as expected	Everyday users	Only available in English (US). May contain significant bugs; may not save files correctly (and so may corrupt existing files)
Release Candidate	Intended to be the next stable release. If no show-stopper bugs are found, this will simply become the next version of OOo	Testers, translators, documentation writers, reviewers...	Users wanting a fully tested product	May overwrite the current version of OOo installed on a PC
Stable	OOo tested and ready for production use, identified by a unique version number	Everyday use in a wide variety of languages
Beta	An early view of the next major release of OOo. A beta has all the features of the new release, but may still contain significant bugs	Reviewers, enthusiasts, testers	Everyday users	Should be safe to install alongside a stable version of OOo. May not save files correctly after use (and so may corrupt existing files)

What builds are available?

• New builds are announced by the QA project - this information is also available as an RSS feed.
• There's also a record of all builds

Where can I find these builds?

• The primary source for downloads is http://download.openoffice.org
• Note that old builds are regularly dropped from servers to make room for the newer builds

How can I help in the testing process?

See the Quality Assurance pages