Well, since TextMate 2 still hasn't come out yet, and this seems to appeal to a very similar aesthetic, I could see this taking over that market. I'm definitely very interested to try it out.
If it really does end up being a free upgrade I'll download it and give it a shot, but Textmate really soured me on paying for a closed-source editor.
TextMate was the best editor I'd ever seen on a computer lab Mac, and when I finally bought my own one of the first things I bought was a TM license. Now there's been two years and three major Mac OS X revisions with almost no real news or updates except an id Software style "working on it."
In the interim I've become proficient with both vim and emacs, preferring console vim + tmux for now. A new editor would be hard-pressed to win me away from that, especially if they're asking for money.
i fear that might not be the case if/when it ever comes out. i have a sinking feeling textmate 2 will end up as a mac store only app, and there's no way to provide free licenses to previous owners of non-mac store licenses.
If he is interested in putting it on the App Store, I doubt such an established developer would sweat maintaining a parallel standard version. Although the free upgrade promise is/was rash, I think it's too late to go back on it.
