Alpha 2 has been announced. You can download the MySQL Connector/OpenOffice.org, an OpenOffice.org extension to connect from OpenOffice.org 3.1 to MySQL 5.1 or newer from ftp://qa-upload.services.openoffice.org/MySQLNative/. OpenOffice.org extensions as easy to install Plug-Ins. Installation instructions can be found at the MySQL Forge wiki page on the MySQL driver for OpenOffice.org.
The MySQL Connector/OpenOffice.org is the easiest way to connect OpenOffice.org and MySQL. Unlike the ODBC and JDBC bridges the "native driver", as its called on the OpenOffice.org world, does not require any extra driver installation and configuration on your system. Download the extension, install it using the OpenOffice.org Extension Manager and you are done.
OpenOffice.org 3.1 no other version
Please note that you cannot load the extension in any other version of OpenOffice.org but 3.1. OpenOffice.org 3.1 is available as a Release Candidate. You can download it from http://download.openoffice.org/next/index.html. Be warned that the installation wizard of OpenOffice.org 3.1RC will automatically remove all previous installations of the office suite if you go for all defaults. Make sure to check the appropriate settings of the OpenOffice.org wizard if you do not want this.
From Preview to Alpha
It has been a long and stony road from the preview version to the current alpha version. The driver has got an all-new design. The preview version of the MySQL Connector/OpenOffice.org did call the MySQL Client Library directly to communicate with the MySQL Server. The alpha version is a thin wrapper around the MySQL Connector/C++ 1.0.4beta. Because of the positive test results of the MySQL Connector/C++ we hope that the alpha version of the OpenOffice.org driver is of acceptable quality.
Known issues have been documented at the OpenOffice.org Wiki. If you are interested in details of the development itself, please check the wiki. We hope to update the wiki soon.
Please let us know about your experiences with the driver. To discuss the new MySQL Connector/OpenOffice.org, please subscribe to the mailing list users@dba.openoffice.org at http://dba.openoffice.org/.
PS: Why do we call it Alpha 2? Alpha 1 has been an unreleased QA build used for OpenOffice.org internal testing purpose only.