Using The OpenDoc Methodology In Free Software?

TheMCP asks: "Some years back Apple got into the OpenDoc kick, and proclaimed a new era in software in which there would be no monolithic applications, but instead users would acquire tool sets and be able to apply small tools to "containers" to create documents. Tools from one vendor would have to work with tools from another, and users would get the best of all possible worlds by being able to select the tools they want to do their work. Then the vision died because Apple had forgotten to account for the fact that what's good for the user isn't necessarily good for the software vendor, and none of the software vendors wanted to be reduced to creating individual tools rather than locking users into their applications as usual." (Read on...)

"It seems to me that the OpenDoc model, or something substantially like it, would be a great paradigm for development of free software, since competition isn't an issue anyway, and the whole point is to serve the user.

Are there any projects currently working on something like this?"