There is a $99 fee to become a part of the Apple developer network. The SDK and all associated tools will be free. The $99 is to get your "digital certificate" and to have your programs published on AppStore.

What the freeware community could do is create a "company" with one $99 fee and publish under this name on AppStore. And frankly I'd have no problem donating a few bucks to someone that showed me a spectacular app to help with is $99 cost.

And I greatly look forward to commercial quality software from big publishers.