Just as addendum I found the reference,
it's german magazine c't, (15) 2000 p.198

Main point is that (for NFS) it is sufficient 
to disable locking via a mount option.

Below a babelfish translation...

So long,
Steffen

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StarOffice, Maple and NFS StarOffice 5.x and Maple V 5,1 are the
concern children under Linux, if one starts the programs over
NFS. While Maple cannot open only its assistance, effective operating
is impossible with StarOffice: A crash lines up to the other one. If
the automatic spell verification is switched on, one creates it even
times to in-tap to two words. A cause for this is the combination of a
2.2-Kernels with user space NFS, as it is to be found still with many
Linux installations. Since Kernel the NFS Client file Locking, the
user space NFS server does not support 2,2 however. StarOffice for
example tried, for its dictionaries such a LOCK to receive, Maple for
its assistance. While the Kernel 2,0 ignored this inquiry easily,
Linux 2,2 returns the delivery an error message. StarOffice
acknowledges this with a crash, Maple with an error message. With not
quite current distributions (about SuSE 6,2) however also to the
Kernel NFS still is missing the lockd Daemon responsible for the file
Locking. At least the programs thereby do not fall however, but
freeze. 
Since the file Locking is not urgently needed however by
both programs, one can help oneself also thereby by switching it off
simply with the mount option `nolock'. In addition one must add this
option only with the mount options in / etc. / fstab or in the
Automount maps. The current Linux distributions (SuSE 6,4 and talk has
6,2) contain finite also lockd. Thus then also cases of problem can be
started such as StarOffice over NFS.