From http://users.avafan.com/~fredrik/beagle/wv-libole2-readonly.patch
See http://mail.gnome.org/archives/dashboard-hackers/2005-August/msg00018.html

--- libole2/ms-ole.c-old	2004-10-22 20:59:51.000000000 -0400
+++ libole2/ms-ole.c	2005-08-03 10:06:14.000000000 -0400
@@ -1723,7 +1723,7 @@
 		 gboolean try_mmap,
 		 MsOleSysWrappers *wrappers)
 {
-	int prot = PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE;
+	int prot = PROT_READ;
 	MsOle *f;
 	MsOleHandleType file;
 
@@ -1737,15 +1737,9 @@
 	f = *fs = ms_ole_new ();
 	take_wrapper_functions (f, wrappers);
 
-	f->file_des = file = f->syswrap->open2 (name, O_RDWR, f->syswrap->closure);
+	f->file_des = file = f->syswrap->open2 (name, O_RDONLY, f->syswrap->closure);
 	f->ref_count = 0;
-	f->mode = 'w';
-
-	if (file == BAD_MSOLE_HANDLE) {
-		f->file_des = file = f->syswrap->open2 (name, O_RDONLY, f->syswrap->closure);
-		f->mode = 'r';
-		prot &= ~PROT_WRITE;
-	}
+	f->mode = 'r';
 
 	if ((file == BAD_MSOLE_HANDLE) || !(f->syswrap->isregfile (file, f->syswrap->closure))) {
 		g_warning ("No such file '%s'\n", name);