Bernhard Dippold wrote:

>> ... I know, all people discussing here have of
>> course several applications installed that are implementing ODF, but out
>> does this apply to the average user?
> 
> Perhaps not now. But it's easy to imagine that there will be a
> lightweighed ODF viewer application in the near future - and then
> they'll have two.

Here's a start at an ODF viewer application:

 http://opendocumentfellowship.com/odfviewer
 http://opendocumentfellowship.com/odfviewer/faq

It's stalled at beta when the many OOXML scandals Novell, Microsoft and
partners stirred up the FOSS and Open Standards communities.  So anyone
interested in a generic viewer could pick it up.

However, there's not any technical reason why a web browser could not
render OpenDocument Format XML in addition to XHTML XML.

As far as future viewers go, there the need for a separate viewer could
be eliminated by simplifying how web browsers handle XML.  IMHO web
browsers could be generic XML parsers but pre-loaded with three DTDs or
schemas : ODF, Docbook, XHTML and one default stylesheet per DTD or
schema.  A lot of that becomes easier, if the core of the browser works
only with well-formed, valid XML.  Support for legacy web sites can be
via an extra module perhaps included by default.

However, there is an attitude afloat that web browsers should try to
kludge a solution to the statelessness of HTTP and HTTPS and be a weak,
faint shadow of of java applets, qt or gtk+.  IMHO that's a waste of
time.  However, waste or not, it is not mutually exclusive to pursuing
generic XML support in the browser.  The two activities might not even
compete for the same developer skill sets.

Having the browsers, like Firefox or Opera, be able to function as
generic XML rendering engines would help OOo in that it would help speed
the adoption of OOo's default file format.

Regards,
/Lars

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