Could Bo and his colleague work using a LyX that's compiled from a branch, where the split from trunk is done just after 1.5.0 has been released?
The file format problem would not be solved by a branch. All I need is a placeholder in 1.5.0 to read \inset listings, \lstinputlisting and \lstparam in preamble. Actually, IMHO, the features are quite usable now and the InsetListings patch is good enough for a beta release or an experimental feature for 1.5.0. Cheers, Bo