I don't have any particular clues, but I had a perhaps similar problem
with gnumeric (native freebsd build 0.58 or 0.61) and its excel
support.  gnumeric's native format works, but it crashes the client
kernel when writing with excel.  I am pretty sure this has _something_
to do with mmap'ing a file and then writing it and the sync triggered
by fsync losing on trying to page back out to the coda vnode.  But
unfortunately that's about the limit of my understanding.  I'd ktrace
staroffice and see if it is mmaping.

        Greg Troxel <gdt_at_ir.bbn.com>