Openoffice.org modifies unexpectedly the modification time of directories

When OpenOffice.org opens a document (except when it opens it readonly, which would happen automatically if the file is readonly or the volume containing it is readonly), it creates a lockfile in the same directory as the document, to control access to the document. For example, putting an OpenOffice.org Writer document called testdoc.odt in a folder called ~/test and listing the full contents of the folder while the document is open in OpenOffice.org will yield output like this:

ek@Apok:~/test$ ls -al
total 28
drwxr-xr-x 2 ek ek 4096 2011-03-01 22:36 .
drwxr-x--- 111 ek ek 12288 2011-03-01 22:36 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 ek ek 68 2011-03-01 22:36 .~lock.testdoc.odt#
-rw-r--r-- 1 ek ek 8167 2011-03-01 07:58 testdoc.odt

Since it's creating a lock file in the directory, it is modifying the contents of the directory, and thus it is correct behavior for the directory's modification time to be updated.