Update: After a long silence, I've started a blog. Go figure.

News 01/04/2002 - Version 7.2 released!

Speak Freely is a 100% software-based VoIP phone originally written in 1991 by John Walker, founder of Autodesk.  After April of 1996, he discontinued development on the program.  Since then, several other VoIP "phones" have cropped up all over the world.  However, most of these programs cost money.  Most of them have poor sound quality, and don't support some of Speak Freely's basic features such as encryption, the answering machine, or selectable compression.    Out of fustration in the shortcomings of the other programs, and even Speak Freely, I decided to implement what I thought were needed features myself, starting in August of 1997.  I contacted John Walker, and he agreed to let me officially take over the project.  In the spirit of Open Source SoftwareTM, I am licensing this program under the GNU General Public License.

What is VoIP?

Version 7.2 Released!

Features

• Conference Mode - Now, you'll be able to have a full, multiperson conference call, without having to use multicasting!
• Enhanced Answering Machine - The answering machine now supports a pre-recorded outgoing message so people will know when you are not available.
• Echo Mode - The Windows version now has an echo mode rather than requiring a separate Unix-based server.
• ICQ Interoperability - Now there is no need to manually setup ICQ for the correct Speak Freely directory!

Unix Version

  Currently, there is a Unix version of Speak Freely available.  You can find it at John Walker's site (http://www.fourmilab.ch/speakfree/unix).  It is currently version 7.0 and supports the same encryption and compression modes as the Windows version.  The only real drawback to the Unix version is that it is a command line application with no graphical user interface (GUI).
  I will be releasing a beta version for X Windows soon, so fear not!  I have not forgotten the rest of the Internet world.  I run Linux on my PC, so it will be first Unix platform to receive new features and changes.  If you get Speak Freely to work on another Unix platform, feel free to let me know, and I will add it to the list of platforms that it runs on.
  What I have decided to do is actually port the existing Windows version to Unix by using the wxWindows Toolkit.  This will make life a lot easier as far as maintaining one version of the code.  Plus, this will give Unix users the added benefit of an identical, fully functional user interface.  Please let me know if you would like to help with this project.  The initial conversion will take some time, but the payoff will be enormous.  I originally planned to use GTK, but I like the idea of wxWindows better because it uses the host O/S's native interface instead of drawing its own as does GTK.  This new port will be Release 8.0, and will most likely mean an almost 100% rewrite of Speak Freely in C++ instead of straight C.

7.2 Release Notes

• Better audio quality - The audio quality has been greatly improved in version 7.2! Mainly, most of the pops and clicks have been eliminated with GSM compression.
• Money Saved indicator removed - The Money Saved indicator has been removed due to confusion by several users thinking they were being charged for using Speak Freely. I guess the name wasn't enough.

Download Speak Freely 7.2

Click here to go to the download site.

Mirror Sites

If you would like to mirror this web site, feel free to do so, and let me know via email.  All I ask is that you provide a link back to the main www.speakfreely.org site, and update at least once per day.

• Australia - http://www.au.speakfreely.org - Provided by the OpenH323 project.

Contact Me

  If you have any questions or would like to contribute to Speak Freely, please email me at brian@speakfreely.org.  I do not normally answer support questions unless it sounds like a software bug in Speak Freely.  Since the software is free, I cannot afford to provide technical support to everyone that asks.  If I did, I would never have time to improve the product.

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Copyright © 1996-2005 Brian C. Wiles.