"would Jeppesen, Garmin, etc, also move in to the world of 'freeware' "
Garmin and everybody else use Jepp GPS data, and Jepp wouldn't touch CAA VFR chart data because it's no good to them; it's specific to the UK, they would be unlikely to get as lucky elsewhere in Europe, it is in raster form so isn't suitable for rotation according to aircraft heading. It's all flat; you can't click on a round blob called "Goodwood" and see the airfield data like you can with the Jepp GPS database. See Memory Map for example. Pretty maps and it makes a nice 2nd GPS but that's it. I am sure the CAA data could be incorporated into a deeper database but who will do it?
Sadly, this is all "mental masturbation" as someone referred to something else here recently. It will never happen. An individual can do it, a low level network of pilots could do it, but any overt venture can't because of copyright issues.
To me, flying abroad is the biggest attraction of flying and would never buy a GPS unless it had unified coverage for all of Europe.
In time, things may change. Eurocontrol are doing a project called Skyview (can't find the URL right now) which is basically a database of everything aviation, and you can build up the desired layers of airfields, navaids, airspace, etc. The resulting maps are pretty rough but they are free and, I guess, totally official. I have no idea if the data can be used commercially but it would appear ideal for a GPS. There is a lot of stuff like that going on at Eurocontrol. They are working on ading an autorouting function to the CFMU website, for example (for airways routes, taking into account SRDs, CDRs etc). They already have it in-house.
Nothing can be more expensive than Jepp's 28-day updates and they are milking the European "grab a copyright on this and that" machine for all it's worth.