The attached essay describes functionality which I believe would greatly enhance the ability of application developers to become productive with ODF.  It is somethig I call an Open Document Developers Kit (ODDF).  I welcome your comments on this essay in the  programming discussion forums.

-Rob

In 2005, Banco do Brasil began a process of migration to the open source software suite OpenOffice.org. The migration commenced with the installation of the package “OpenOffice.org 2.0”. As of February 2007, this suite is found installed in more than 71,000 workstations, distributed among the branches and corporate offices.

This ODF Alliance white paper describes how documents are the life blood of modern governments and their citizens. Governments use documents to capture knowledge, store critical information, coordinate activities, measure results, and communicate across departments and with businesses and citizens. Increasingly documents are moving from paper to electronic form. To adapt to ever-changing technology and business processes, governments need assurance that they can access, retrieve and use critical records, now and in the future.