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Should Mozilla take over Open Office?

Mozilla should take over Open Office. What do you think?
Written by Dana Blankenhorn, Inactive

There is a new version of Firefox out. George Ou (whose word I trust) finds it competitive with Internet Explorer 7.

It would be nice, for desktop Linux fans, if we could say the same thing about Open Office and Microsoft Office. We can't.

In terms of features, documentation and support, the current Open Office is at least a decade behind Microsoft Office. I have both the current OpenOffice 2.0 and Microsot Office '97 here, which is why I make that comparison.

This should not be a surprise. Microsoft Office can cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars to nearly $1,000, depending on the applications you want with it. Open Office is a free download.

But the difference is greater than that. Open Office is poor not only next to proprietary rivals, but next to other open source programs that might make up a desktop Linux suite. Compare it to Firefox, Thunderbird, or any of the other Mozilla applications, like SeaMonkey, Camino and Sunbird.

So let me offer a modest proposal. Mozilla should take over Open Office. What do you think?

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