Does anyone know of (or use) a free, license independent SCM repository? And which Versioning client do you recommend? I like Tortoise SVN or RCS, but Assembla is the only free repository I know of and it requires Open Source content.
Alternatively, does anyone know how to set up an SCM repository on an external drive?

I use devjavu, which has been kind to me In the six months I've been using it I've only caught it offline twice, and each time it was back up within a day or two
-wyrmmage

Just use a decentral system, like bzr, hg, git or darcs. Then you don't need to worry about getting hosting. And as for clients, the command line clients are all pretty simple to use, and all work pretty much the same way for the basic stuff.

I actually setup my old G5 DP 2.0Ghz tower as a Subversion server. Home networking ftw and I have control of whether it is online or not. It's actually really easy to set up once you find the right info as to how. Sharing it is the hardest part, you have to tunnel port 22 through your router if you have one and setup an account with dyndns.org or something like it. Cheers!