Firefox is enjoying great press and millions of downloads and is also a relatively quick download (certainly when compared to OOo). It reads documents in standard formats and displays them on the screen, and some of these formats (xhtml) are probably similar in many ways to the XML-based OpenDocument formats. The fit is perfect. The work to create an OOo file viewer by this route is probably less than any other current option!
We'd also be building a strong software ecosystem around the complementary products of OpenOffice.org and Mozilla Firefox, strengthening the place of each in the market. The symbiotic relationship between the two programs would be enhanced, as would the case for FLOSS on the desktop (regardless of underlying OS).
Microsoft's fears of the browser becoming a platform that makes operating systems obsolete would really begin to be realized. (I don't care one way or the other about MS, except when they hold back what's good for the user and market to advance their own interests. Then I'm angry.) Other additional advances will take place at an even more rapid pace.
Maybe as marketers, we can ignite the motivation in fine programmers already out there looking for a great new project. What does everybody think?
Ben
--------------------------------------- "The Tiny Guide to OpenOffice.org" is available at Hentzenwerke Publishing or Amazon.com. (www.hentzenwerke.com/catalog/tgooo.htm)
Free OpenOffice downloads at www.openoffice.org.
