[Libreoffice-qa] what to do with AOO - Sidebar - experimental feature in libreoffice-4-1 master and the 4.1.0 branch

[V Stuart Foote]

OK, so with a bit of git magic, looks like the Apache OpenOffice work on their Sidebar implementation of the Symphony contribution has been merged into LibreOffice master. And, unless I am really misreading the git logs, has been included in the libreoffice-4-1 branch (at commit a2c9d4f8bbde97f175bae4df771273a61251f402). 

So while it is too soon for the 4.1 tinderboxes to verify that myself, but looking at a master TB 6 build that predates the branch point by several hours:

tinderbox: buildname: Win-x86 at 6
tinderbox: tree: MASTER
tinderbox: pull time 2013-05-20 20:57:59
tinderbox: git sha1s
core:de00b8bb67b7453b45e081fe602782803eab1349

...the Apache OpenOffice Sidebar feature is present in the 4.1.0 branch as an experimental feature, i.e. accessible from Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Optional (unstable) options -- "Enable experimental sidebar (on restart)"  check-box.

Not wrong if it makes it into 4.1.0 branch I guess, but it presents some logistical issues from a QA perspective, and raises a question.  Does the ESC want QA to submit LibreOffice bugs against these experimental features, or should we continue to track and test implementation of Sidebar on the AOO side where active development resides with Andre, Oliver, and others. Following the primary AOO meta bug for Sidebar implementation is https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=121420

I can verify the merged Sidebar already works in LibreOffice, and that it has the same UI issues as the AOO Dev builds (several already corrected), but beyond that how much of a role will LO Devs take on that I need to split any QA effort on?

Stuart