Forget now about labels and conventions: there is not such thing as free software, like there is not such thing as free speech. There are free developers and free speakers, and they are the ones setting the limits of freedom of their products and actions. If they are not free, how free can be the result of their actions?

According to a report by the New York Times, the firm’s Chairman, Johnny Shih, said that the handset will be called, unimaginatively, the Eee Phone.

I was talking with a pal of mine yesterday out back in his workshop. He was making a beautiful piece of furniture and I was going on about the world which, of course, eventually led to a discussion of computer operating systems, open source, that kind of thing.

Internet phone service provider SIPphone, whose Gizmo Project software enables Linux, Windows, and Mac users to make free phone calls using their PCs, announced this week that it has added support for the AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger networks.

A startup is readying an interesting new Linux-based device promising to deliver free domestic calls (in the U.S.) for life, with no ongoing charges. Ooma's hub uses P2P networking, with each user's landline serving as a potential local termination point for all other users.

"For the last few years I had been working when time was available on what is called the GNU Telephony Secure Calling Initiative.This initiative was originally started specifically to make passive voice communication intercept a thing of the past using free software and public standards, and came out of ideas from and the work of the New York City civil liberties community and New York Fair Use in

For the last few years I had occasionally been working on what is called the GNU Telephony Secure Calling initiative.

Everyone wants a piece of you these days: Google, Facebook, Flickr, Apple, AT&T, Bing. They'll give you free e-mail, free photo storage, free web hosting, even a free date. They just want to listen in.

Imagine coming home from work and instead of plugging your phone to a wall where it will just dully wait to be recharged, plug it to your computer via USB and make a few phone calls, send a few SMS messages or tidy up your phone book all by using your computer keyboard and mouse, rather than that tiny phone keypad!