A guy named Michiel van Meeteren researched and wrote a thesis paper for the University of Amsterdam looking into the world of independent Mac software developers. The research was sponsored and now published by Mac developer MadeBySofa.

You may ask why this is relevant to the iPhone? First, I believe many iPhone developers are also Mac developers, so they will take this culture with them to the iPhone (or they would if the NDA was lifted). Second, I think it would be in Apple's best interest if the iPhone developers would forge a similar community.