Sun is shifting the license that governs OpenOffice from the Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 2 to LGPLv3 in an effort to give the open-source office suite greater patent protection. I’m not sure it’s going to work:

Until Microsoft and the ever-waiting horde of patent trolls start contributing to OpenOffice, it’s unclear how users of OpenOffice will gain any new patent protection from the license change. No one was worried about Novell, Sun, etc. waging a patent war against users of OpenOffice. The threat is elsewhere.

By moving from version 2 of the LGPL to version 3, Sun is bringing new language prohibiting the use of software patents to OpenOffice.org. “The most important protection for developers comes from creating mutual patent grants. … LGPLv3 does this,” [Sun's Simon] Crosby noted. In effect, a code issuer using either the plain GPL or LGPL is telling developers who adopt the code that he will not invoke any patents he may hold over that code.

As such, this is well-intentioned but probably not all that useful.

In a release, eBay attributed its strong quarter to several factors, including global business classifieds, growth at its Skype and PayPal units, and “net transaction revenues” from Marketplaces.

It’s also somewhat ironic that eBay it touting its success with Skype when for some time the common wisdom has been that its much-hyped acquisition of the VoIP company had been viewed as a failure.

Among the milestones eBay trumpeted for the quarter were 100 billion total Skype-to-Skype minutes, 3 million total vehicles sold on eBay motors, and the repurchase of 37 million shares of eBay common stock for about $1 billion.

Also during the quarter, John Donahoe assumed the CEO position, succeeding longtime leader Meg Whitman.

The auction giant said that it brought in Q1 revenue of $2.19 billion, up 24 percent from the $1.77 billion it brought in during the same period a year earlier. In addition, the company’s Q1 profit of $460 million, or 34 cents a share, was up 22 percent from its Q1 2007 earnings of $377 million, or 27 cents.

On Monday, Adobe released a security update for a serious vulnerability within Reader and Acrobat. The vulnerability described in CVE-2008-2641 is being circulated on the Internet. Adobe says if exploited the vulnerability could crash applications and could allow an attacker to take control of the affected system.

The update affects Adobe Reader 8.0 through 8.1.2, Adobe Reader 7.0.9 and earlier, Adobe Acrobat Professional, 3D and Standard 8.0 through 8.1.2, Adobe Acrobat Professional, 3D and Standard 7.0.9 and earlier. It does not affect Adobe Reader 7.1.0 and Acrobat 7.1.0.

Best Buy appears intent on expanding its line of MP3 players. The latest addition, dubbed the Insignia Kix (1GB), screams budget: It has a small screen, a plastic body, and a price tag of just $50. No doubt, the Kix is cheap (and feels it), but it’s not without its merits. The player offers decent sound quality, comes with interchangeable USB covers, and includes a couple of compelling features, such as an FM tuner and subscription music support. Read Insignia Kix review.

Click the pic to launch the slide show.

“I think we have much to do in wireless,” he said during the call. “We need a partner for voice, but we need a partner for data and broadband data, so as we look forward, we’ll need someone to help us with both of those.”

With the turnaround complete, the company is entering the next phase of its comeback with strong momentum in its broadband business. Thanks to some major cost-cutting efforts in the past year, Qwest has managed to generate a significant amount of cash and profit. Earlier this month, the company reported that it generated $2.9 billion in profit from $13.8 billion in sales in 2007, compared with $593 million in profit on $13.9 billion revenue in 2006.

Recent changes in wireless pricing could entice even more people to cut their phone lines at home and go exclusively with wireless. Last week, AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile USA introduced new unlimited local and long-distance domestic calling plans for a flat fee of $100 a month. These plans, which free customers from worrying about how many minutes they’re using, could potentially eat further into Qwest’s landline business. And because Qwest has no wireless service of its own, it can’t offer a similar alternative.

But without its own spectrum, Qwest can’t build its own wireless rural network. The company is also not participating in the most recent 700MHz spectrum auction, which could have been used to build a rural broadband network. But Jaegers said the company could partner with a license winner in that auction.

Qwest has made up for some of this loss by ramping up sales in broadband. The company added 95,000 high-speed Internet subscribers in the fourth quarter. It also has been increasing network speeds. And Mueller has said he plans to use some of the company’s cash to put more fiber in the ground for broadband services to increase speeds.

“About 20 percent of Qwest’s footprint is not dense enough for DSL,” she said. “So WiMax would make a lot of sense.”

“Qwest’s lack of wireless infrastructure is a huge weakness,” said Patrick Comack, an analyst with Zachary Research. “There is opportunity in wireless. But the problem is that they are at the mercy of Sprint or whoever else they partner with.”

Mueller is likely to expand on comments he made earlier this month during the company’s quarterly conference call about Qwest’s wireless plans and what it might mean for the company’s current partnership to resell Sprint Nextel’s wireless phone service.

On Monday, the company will host its first major investor conference in New York since its new chief executive officer, Edward Mueller, came on board last summer. The meeting will provide Mueller and his team an opportunity to assure analysts and investors that the company has a game plan to grow Qwest’s business in what promises to be a very challenging time.

The company also reported it had $1.8 billion of free cash flow in 2007. This is money that is available for things such as capital spending. With a steady flow of cash, the company declared a dividend of 8 cents to shareholders, the first time it has made such a payout to investors since 2001.

Qwest Communications International needs wireless–badly.

This, of course, isn’t exactly a revelation to anyone who’s been following the descent–and now rebound–of the nation’s third-largest telecommunications company. But as Qwest continues to get back on track, that lack of a wireless business could prove vexing.

Donna Jaegers, director of research for equity research firm Janco Partners, believes that Mueller may be expressing frustration with the Sprint deal as a way to renegotiate a more favorable arrangement with Sprint when their current deal expires next year.

But analysts say that Qwest is at a disadvantage in this arrangement because Sprint requires a lag time between when it launches new services, such as faster wireless broadband services, and when Qwest can offer those same services. What’s more, the arrangement with Sprint doesn’t provide much profit margin for Qwest.

But the problem, Jaegers said, is that the spectrum that Sprint is using to build its network is in the 2.5GHz band, which requires more densely deployed transmission towers. This would be an expensive solution to solve Qwest’s rural broadband problem. And even though Qwest is carrying around a lot of cash, it’s difficult to say how much investors would tolerate the company investing in building a WiMax network.

“When executives start voicing displeasure like this it’s usually to put themselves in a better negotiating position,” she said. “The contract isn’t up until early 2009, but Mueller knows that Sprint can’t afford to lose any more customers.”

But while Qwest was able to cut costs and generate profits in 2007, its revenue declined slightly in 2007, and Mueller said he expects sales to either dip again or remain steady in 2008.

The problem for Qwest is that unlike the two other large phone companies in the country, AT&T and Verizon Communications, it doesn’t own any of its own wireless infrastructure. The company sold the last of its wireless spectrum and cell phone infrastructure to Verizon Wireless in 2004 for $418 million in cash. So any new move in wireless would require it to either acquire new spectrum or work closely with another provider, which will likely not provide the same upside as its telecom brethren will enjoy.

The best that Qwest can do is resell wireless service from Sprint Nextel. Currently, Qwest provides wireless service to 824,000 customers. The way it works is that Qwest purchases cellular minutes from Sprint and then creates its own cell phone minute packages with its own handsets.

Some analysts and industry watchers wonder if Qwest might have bigger wireless ambitions. There have been some rumors floating around that the company is talking to Sprint, Clearwire, and Intel about WiMax. Jaegers said that WiMax could be a very useful technology for Qwest as it pushes forward with its broadband strategy.

Denver-based Qwest, which provides local phone service in 14 western U.S. states, has been through the ringer in recent years. The company has battled its way past a scandal, which led to a fraud conviction of former CEO Joseph Nacchio, and near bankruptcy to get back on its feet.

But wireless, or the company’s lack of wireless, appears to be a stumbling block, especially as AT&T and Verizon Communications, the No. 1 and No. 2 phone companies in the country, are getting more aggressive with their wireless offerings. Even though these companies have traditionally not competed for local phone customers, nationwide wireless networks change the game. And now AT&T and Verizon are directly competing against each other as well as against Qwest and other major wireless operators.

Instead, Mueller has said he wants a more lucrative partnership. The company could look for an arrangement that is similar to the one it has with satellite TV provider DirecTV. In this arrangement, Qwest bundles DirecTV service with its phone and Internet packages. DirecTV handles equipment, installations, and customer service. But Qwest also receives monthly fees from DirecTV based on the number of subscribers.

Losing landlines
The big problem for Qwest and other local phone companies is that they are losing traditional landline phone customers. Last year alone Qwest lost 738,000 home-phone lines, a 9.1 percent drop from the previous year. And it’s expected to lose more landlines this coming year as more customers cut the cord at home and use cell phones or alternative services, such as Vonage, which uses voice over IP technology.

But the problem for Qwest is that the only other likely cell phone partner is T-Mobile, which doesn’t have a strong network footprint in rural areas, where many of Qwest’s customers reside. Alltel is another potential partner. Even if Qwest could find another partner, the company will still be at the mercy of someone else who owns the network.

“I think if you look way back when Qwest first sold off its early spectrum licenses, you’d probably say that was a strategic mistake,” Jaegers said. “But now with the wireless market already 85 percent penetrated, I’m not sure what else they can do.”

Indeed, Sprint is struggling too. The third-biggest U.S. wireless carrier lost some 683,000 post-paid contract customers last quarter.

Many other video-sharing sites, including Google’s YouTube, have similar features already. The real advantage to the presence of direct uploads on MySpace, however, is the fact that they can then be quickly embedded in member profiles, “bulletins,” and comments, capitalizing on the fast-growing video commenting trend.

MySpace also announced that MySpaceTV videos’ maximum file size has been extended to 512 megabytes; that’s half of what YouTube allows, but YouTube also caps them at 10 minutes in length, which MySpaceTV does not.

(Credit:
MySpace)

A look at MySpaceTV's new direct-record tool.

Supports BonusView, which means it is Profile 1.1 compliant
BD-Live ready, which means it can gain BD-Live capability with a firmware update
Ethernet port for firmware upgrades
Supports 1080p output at both 24 and 60 frames per second
Onboard decoding for Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD
Bitstream output for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio
About $400 list price, scheduled to come out this summer

On Sale Now: $499.96
View the latest prices for Sony BDP-S550

Sony has announced two new Blu-ray players scheduled to be released in the second half of the year: the entry-level BDP-S350 and the step-up BDP-S550. We haven’t been the biggest fans of Sony’s recent standalone Blu-ray players (the BDP-S300 was really slow and the same price as the PlayStation 3). Fresh off its victory over HD DVD, however, the company has announced two new Blu-ray players for 2008, both of which sport considerably more attractive feature sets and prices. Here are the details:

Is the BDP-S550 the first standalone Blu-ray player better than the PS3?

While the BDP-S350 is interesting for its relatively low price point, it’s still going to be hampered by the fact that it costs the same as the
PlayStation 3–which offers almost all the same functionality (except bitstream audio output for high-resolution soundtracks), plus you get a high-definition game console and a media streamer. On the other hand, we could see the BDP-S550 being a hit with home theater enthusiasts because it offers a couple of key step-ups that make is a particularly solid standalone player–DTS-HD Master Audio Decoding and 7.1 analog outputs. We’re betting that the PS3 eventually gets onboard DTS-HD Master Audio decoding–which will make BDP-S550 less attractive–but for right now it looks like a solid option for audiophiles, especially those who plan to use the 7.1 analog outputs. Of course, the BDP-S550 will also have to compete with other step-up standalone players coming out this year and we’re betting the Panasonic DMP-BD50 will give it a run for its money.

The following products are available:

On Sale Now: $262.88 – $349.87
View the latest prices for Sony BDP-S350

Key features of the Sony BDP-S350:

Onboard decoding for DTS-HD High Resolution and DTS-HD Master Audio
7.1 analog outputs
1GB local storage, which should make it Profile 2.0 compliant
About $500 list price, scheduled to come out in the fall

Step-up features on the BDP-S550

(Credit:
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.)

There are many challenges in waging war for oil, not the least of which is fighting in a big sandbox–it’s hard on soldiers and it’s murder on helicopters.

After only an only few hours of familiarization with the prototype, pilots were able to successfully execute landing approaches during recent tests conducted at the Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., according to Sikorsky.

“The biggest problem, though, is that they can’t see lateral drift because of the dust, which can cause them to tip over and cause casualties,” Weiser told Defense News.

Sikorsky collaborated with Sierra Nevada Corp. and Honeywell International to produce a prototype. Sierra Nevada supplied the three-dimensional radar that penetrates the sand and dust and detects terrain and objects within the landing zone, while Honeywell’s Sensor-driven Localized External Evidential Knowledge (SLEEK) and Synthetic Vision System displays the radar data and a three-dimensional view of the LZ and surroundings on a cockpit screen.

The Elbit system, called solution Dust-Off, is based on its wire-strike avoidance system. As with Sandblaster, it’s an amalgamation of other products. They include the ANVIS/HUD-24T with LOS tracker and a Surveillance Warning Obstacle Ranging and Display (SWORD) laser radar. (PDF)

“There are two issues,” said Benjamin Weiser a senior director in charge of helicopter upgrades at Elbit Systems, which produces a competing system. “Helicopters come into unmarked territory at night with hostile fire and need to land, load or drop. First, they must verify that the landing zone doesn’t have obstacles and that the slope is good for landing.

Enter the Sandblaster. This is a helicopter avionics system commissioned by DARPA that integrates advanced flight controls, a “see-through” sensor, synthetic vision and data fusion to allow the pilots to fly safely in a zero-visibility, howling haboob, according to Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.

Asay: Open source really is about collaboration, as you indicate in the name of your company. Given your experiences over the last five years, what’s your advice for the open-source industry today?

I was fortunate to catch up Thursday with Stuart Cohen, CEO and founder of the Collaborative Software Initiative. Stuart used to run OSDL where he got to talk with people at large enterprises that have adopted open source, and learned quite a bit about enterprise interest in not only consuming open source, but also creating open source.

Asay: A year ago I said that Collaborative Software Initiative was changing the rules of the enterprise. Do you think this still true?

The unique value Collaborative Software Initiative brings to the market is our recipe for collaboration that enables developing and deploying software in a variety of ways: software as a service (SaaS), on-site, and as an appliance. In short, our mission is to work with companies that have identified common needs in their vertical, reduce their upfront cost of development and deployment, and create a community around the code to improve the technology past the point of delivery, leveraging dollars for competitive differentiation.

Asay: Collaborative Software Initiative is going on 18 months now. How has the company evolved since you founded it in April 2007?

Asay: Tell me more about TriSano and your choice to license it under AGPLv3.

Asay: In what other vertical markets is Collaborative Software Initiative seeing demand for its development model?

Cohen: Go beyond the code. Extend your business model to address the needs of business users and subject matter experts. The best software is developed with collaboration among all constituents – the developers, users and partners. The principles that made open source disruptive to the software industry can be applied to a new level of applications that broaden the opportunities for any software company. This brings greater value to the customers and communities served.

(Credit:
Collaborative Software Initiative)

To help foster both interests Stuart founded CSI in 2007. I asked him how things have progressed since CSI’s founding:

Cohen: It’s amazing how many people I’ve talked to over the last two years about how the Collaborative Software Initiative model can work for them. When customers see our model, they quickly identify opportunities to collaborate with their peers. People from a range of industries have expressed interest and we see organic growth from our first few projects in health care, government and financial services. We’re also talking to folks in the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, and energy industries.

Cohen: Yes, very much. Enterprise organizations have gained a significant amount of value from infrastructure applications that have been community built – from Linux to MySQL to JBoss, the results are undeniable.

We believe, and again this has been validated over the last year, that communities lower cost, provide a “network effect” for companies adopting these applications and build sustainability for future growth of an application.

Stuart Cohen

Cohen: We’re really excited about TriSano and our decision to go with AGPLv3 was one to which we gave a lot of thought. TriSano is a public health application focused on infectious disease surveillance, outbreak management and bioterrorism attacks, and it’s a community where epidemiologists, doctors, nurses, health officials and software developers work together to create critically needed public health applications. AGPLv3 best supports the confluence of software-as-a-service and open-source development models. The reaction to TriSano has been quite positive.

commentary

Excellent insight, confirming to me that CSI continues to push the envelope on what open source can do for the enterprise.

Cohen: I’m really proud to say that our original concept has been validated in multiple verticals with very different projects. Based on my early conversations with customers during my time as CEO of Open Source Development Labs, I saw an untapped opportunity to build communities in vertical markets to develop software at a fraction of the cost of traditional software models.

That said, software developers are best when solving problems they are passionate about, which generally does not include compliance software or industry-specific applications, which is why subject matter experts are so important to our collaborative model. Gartner likes to call us the first vendor to represent community sourcing, which it says is when users decide to band together to create their own solutions. Our collaborative model enables that phenomenon.

A family member contacted me this morning about a problem a friend of his was having in Microsoft Word. It seems there were little dots in every blank space, paragraph marks at each “carriage return,” and other formatting symbols that she didn’t want to see.

Deactivate formatting marks in Word 2007 via the Display window in the Word Options dialog box.

We now return you to your Web browsing, already in progress.

To hide formatting in Word 2003, click Format > Reveal Formatting (or press Shift-F1) and uncheck “Show all formatting marks.”

Uncheck "Show all formatting marks" in Microsoft Word's Reveal Formatting pane to hide the unwanted symbols in your documents.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

In Word 2007, change this option by clicking the Office button in the top-left corner, choosing Word Options, selecting Display in the left pane, and unchecking “Show all formatting marks.”