The availability of Apple's new X11 beta (mentioned by Patrick below) means that it's now a hell of a lot easier to get OpenOffice.org (yes, the .org is part of the product name, don't ask) running on your Mac, though the downloads are gargantuan. So for all you mortals like me who never could quite muster up the courage to install XFree86 before, the routine is, roughly:

• Download and install Apple's X11 beta (about 40M)
• Download the latest OpenOffice.org installer (about 200M)
• Run the OpenOffice.org installer (you can leave out Ghostscript)
• Launch X11
• Add an entry to the X11 Applications menu -- path should be something like "/Applications/OpenOffice.org1.0.1/program/soffice"
• Launch the app by selecting it from that menu (ignore the "Start OpenOffice.org" script for now, because it doesn't yet work with Apple's X11).

It's weird having a Windows-clone UI running via XWindows on a Macintosh, but eventually those interface wrinkles will get smoothed out. The key bullet point here is: the shit works. In terms of speed, compatability, and stability, it's better than any of the Office alternatives I've tried. It's only going to improve. And it's free! Discuss