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Sad news. Skype works very well on Linux.

So, what are currently the best SIP free (as in beer) SIP clients for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X?

It's been a long time since I looked into this. On Linux, these projects look promising:
http://icanblink.com/
http://sflphone.org/

The alternative open protocols are SIP (exclusively voice and video, used in telephony) and Jabber/XMPP (text/voice/video/file transfer etc).
Jabber works better on NAT traversal and has many features that SIP lacks (because SIP was designed for telephony it has no file transfer and other chat-related capabilities). So naturally Jabber is the better suited solution in this case.

A list of Skype alternatives on Linux, both SIP and Jabber protocol support (some are cross platform):

- Sflphone is simple and quite good, has srtp/zrtp client-to client encryption via SIP or IAX, but no video. Also has many gnome dependencies. Linux only.
- Linphone is a simple and well-working SIP solution (it is cross platform btw). Has video capabilities.
- Ekiga is a SIP/H323 solution (it is cross platform). Has video capabilities. But from version 3 is not very good in NAT traversal.
- Empathy is a Gnome desktop messenger, and it is in development, many features wont work right with it yet. Theoretically with the right packages inatalled supports SIP (this works sometimes), Google Talk (this works most of the time), Yahoo/Jabber/MSN/etc. But it is kinda flaky overall. Linux only/
- Pidgin has voice/video capabilities on Linux (not on Windows) via jabber or google chat (works with Google Talk client and the gmail web plugin). Cross-platform, but the video/voice plugin is Linux-only.
- Jitsi is a java-based cross-platform messenger (was Sip Communicator), supports Jabber (also video+voice+screen sharing)/Yahoo messenger/Google talk (also voice+video+screen sharing+zrtp)/SIP (with screen sharing + zrtp)/Facebook/etc (all protocols supported by Pidgin + SIP and also zrtp encryption for voice/video on SIP/jabber, and otr for text). On Linux uses portaudio for sound and works perfectly well with ALSA. Probably has the most features of them all. It is under active development.
- Blink is a SIP client works on Linux, Windows and MAC. For some reason keeps an audio channel permanently open eating ~20% CPU on idle but otherwise looks promising.
- YATE Client is a graphical gui client frontend based on the YATE telephony server, it supports SIP/IAX and Google Talk (text chat, file transfer, conferencing). It is very lightweight compared to the others.

So, what are currently the best SIP free (as in beer) SIP clients for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X? It's been a long time since I looked into this. On Linux, these projects look promising: http://icanblink.com/ http://sflphone.org/

Can't find any. There are several open source SIP/Voice tools but with Multi-point nope.... Ekiga/GnomeMeeting - http://ekiga.org/ ZAP - http://croczilla.com/zap SFLPhone - http://www.sflphone.org/ OPenWengo - http://www.wengophone.com/ Can anyone list some one? or should the community should try to evolve this projects ?

VoIP not only needs to catch up but also be open like email, and unlike the divided IM space.
Unfortunately Skype is not the application which connects to an open network.

Only applications like Gizmo http://www.gizmoproject.com/ and many other ones (which I don't use) connect to the International Standard-compliant Protocol known as SIP.

If you want voice chat (VoIP) on Linux then you have a good selection too (I don't know which are SIP compliant and which are not though):

http://www.phonegaim.com/
http://cockatoo.mozdev.org/
http://www.gizmoproject.com/
http://www.linphone.org/
http://www.wirlab.net/kphone/
http://www.minisip.org/
http://www.sflphone.org/
http://www.sipfoundry.org/
http://www.twinklephone.com/
http://www.openwengo.com/
http://yate.null.ro/
http://www.divmod.org/projects/shtoom

In addition to the number of good IM clients for Linux (especially GAIM), if you want voice chat (VoIP) on Linux then you have a good selection too: PhoneGaim : http://www.phonegaim.com/ ( http://cockatoo.mozdev.org/ ( http://www.gizmoproject.com/ ( http://www.linphone.org/ KPhone : http://www.wirlab.net/kphone/ Skype : http://www.skype.com/ ( http://www.minisip.org/ SFLphone : http://www.sflphone.org/ SIPfoundry : http://www.sipfoundry.org/ Twinkle : http://www.twinklephone.com/ openwengo : http://www.openwengo.com/ Yate : http://yate.null.ro/ shtoom : http://www.divmod.org/projects/shtoom Best to get one that connects via 'SIP' and is entirely standard-compliant, then you can connect to anyone on other standard networks (except those in closed networks like Skype(???)).

You may want to have a look at another promising alternative to skype : SFLphone.

How about xten, firefly, pulver, sjphone, sflphone, minisip, kphone, linphone, phonegaim? This is just the software I know of, there are probably many more that other people can add to the list. Which that would suit you depends of course on what your needs are.