No, Allan, I didn't mean free as in free beer. I only mentioned price because it's what developers usually worry about.
I've been involved in free, open source projects myself -- not programming but usability and interface design. One of the ones that didn't really take off was Saskatoon http://saskatoon.sourceforge.net/
You can still contribute to TextMate's functionality (via the Bundles), yet Allan can maintain control over the main direction of the application.
Thanks, guys, I never saw it that way.
Now I'll go make some bundles!