Impossible to set org mode variable

[Rusi]

There is a variable org-odt-data-dir that I am trying to set for the org-mode 
exporter to work.  However I seem to be completely unable to make a setq or 
defvar or whatever do what it should.

Heres the scenario

emacs 23 C-h v
---------------
org-odt-data-dir is a variable defined in `org-version.el'.
Its value is "~/pdsw/org-mode/etc"

Documentation:
The location of ODT styles.
------------------
So far so good. This is what Ive set and what I want

Now emacs 24 C-h v
------------------
org-odt-data-dir is a variable defined in `org-version.el'.
Its value is "/usr/share/emacs/etc/org"

Documentation:
The location of ODT styles.

The even weirder thing is if I click the org-version link, I see

;;;###autoload
(defvar org-odt-data-dir "~/pdsw/org-mode/etc"
  "The location of ODT styles.")

Can someone explain whats going on