A new year, a new assignment — I start a regular series of Web columns and print features for Baseline Magazine.You might have missed the news just before the holidays that Microsoft has become slightly more open with respect to its networking protocols. Late last year, they announced a way for third parties to license their core file sharing protocols through an independent organization called the Protocol Freedom Information Foundation.This is good news on several fronts. You can read more of this posting called a more open Microsoft.