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Does anyone know where I can get document templates for OOO and the like?

The easiest way is to just buy StarOffice for $79 USD (I believe the license still allows 5 users to use a single "network install"). It comes with lots of clip art, doc templates, presentation templates, etc. Buy it here.

If you want less stuff, but for free, I believe you can find files here and here.

Is Ability open source? (OOo is, SO is not.)

OpenOffice.org is well known, has third party books available, and third party training. If you want a commercial counterpart, there is StarOffice. Seems to me like the best of both worlds.

There is one major feature of OpenOffice.org and StarOffice that don't seem to get as much play as they should in a forum like Slashdot. It is programmable in Basic, Java, Python. If you install the scripting framework then is is programmable in BeanShell (i.e. interactive Java), JavaScript, and others in the future.

The OOo document format is well documented . XML in a Zip file. The DTD is available. KDE has announced that KOffice will be standardizing on the OpenOffice.org document format. So in theory, a Windows user running SO or OOo could exchange documents with a Linux user running KOffice. (Not that both OOo and SO don't also run on Linux.)

Developer documentation is readily available, and also a large downloadable SDK. Third parties can develop new components that run within and seemlessly integrate into OOo or SO.

There are lots of resources for OOo.
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This is by no means an exhaustive list.

I have personally taken an interest in OOo and written a Java program (and other tools ) The java program draws Mazes on a running copy of OOo, but the java program can be run on a different computer, over the net. (Win -> Linux, Linux -> Win, etc.)

So, what kind of developmet does Open Office allow?

Read all about it. api.openoffice.org udk.openoffice.org

Go over to OOoForum.org , go into the Macros and API section and read what people are doing.

Go over to OOoDocs.org , they also have a Macros and devlopment section.

You can write StarBasic code directly into OOo documents. You can write programs in Java to drive a running OOo, even on a different computer. (For example, a Java program on, say, Windows, telling an OOo running on Linux what to do.) You can write components in C++ or Java or Python.

The Python UNO bridge is new. I haven't tried it yet. I believe you can do anything with Python that you could do with Java or C++ in OOo. StarBasic is limited in that you cannot create new components, it lacks sophisticated data structures, and you can only embed it within documents. The other languages cannot be embedded within documents (yet). I'm hoping to someday be able to embed Java classes or Python within an OOo document, just like I can with StarBasic macros.

Be sure to download the SDK. Read the documentation, especially the developer's guide. The first big learning curve is to understand UNO. This is pretty much a prerequisite for everything else. Once you do though, you're on your way.

Oh yeah, on languages that can access OOo. If you're on Windows, you can use Windows Automation. This means you can access it from, say, Visual Basic. I have seen OpenOffice.org programmed from Visual FoxPro.

http://installation.openoffice.org/ Tells you everything. Ask on the mailing lists for more clarification. Lee's mainly a Graphics guy through he did some cool hacking for dictinstall.

According to this, WordPerfect filters for OpenOffice are coming soon thanks to a project with the City of Largo, Fla. AbiWord already reads WordPerfect documents (can't say how well, I don't have many WP docs), and I believe this project is porting their filter to OpenOffice.

Please e-mail Josh Berkus, josh@agliodbs.com , to contribute or pledge support. I've already sent in my pledge :)

It's nice to see someone sit down and write a refutation of Microsoft's claims that addresses each point in a calmrational manner. It seems to me that most of MS's opponents have been behaving emotionally and melodramatically in recent times, trying to sway the courts and the press to their side of the fight.

I think the OSS community could do worse than to adopt this letter as one of the resources they quote in favour of open source products.

There is a users project led by the City Of Largo in Florida to develop WordPerfect filters. Check out the OOoDocs site for more info.

There's a user project at the moment about adding WPD compatability to OpenOffice.org (and those programs, like this that support it's file formats and API's). Take a look here for more info.

Currently it's a proprietry addition in StarOffice. Oh and I'd imagine that StarOffice 6 will be out by the time your beta expires.