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And two minutes later, someone told me of Gnap, a GNOME client for Napster which apparently the Napster people doesn't really like. I mirrored it here for those interested. Looks pretty okay.

I'm not saying that it's impossible though, just that it's a little harder than most people think. Just because you're good at programming free software, that doesn't mean that a company will hire you to improve the software they use. Most companies probably never used GNU/Linux anyway, at least that's the case in Sweden, although that is constantly improving.

So you need to sell yourself in some way. Hopefully you can do this through contacts that you have made with other companies earlier. That's the easiest way to do it. If you don't, well, you'd better start knocking on doors real soon.

As for me, well, I could probably do a lot more free software work than I do today if I had the money for it. I'm using a 486 as my console, you can imagine how fun it is to run X and compile programs on it. Sure, it works, but it takes a lot of time and effort so I don't do X. For some of you, $2000 to buy a new system (yes, that's how much I need. My eyes are bad so I need a very good monitor) might not be that much. But if you've been living on the edge for most of your life, barely having enough money to make ends meet, $2000 is way over the roof. I could live on that kind of money for more than 3 months!

So I'm trying to make the best of it. I'm trying to save money so I can one day buy a new monitor and a new system and get some real work done, but at the same time, I have to make a living somehow. Jobs are hard enough to get in Sweden as it is, and if you only want to work 50%, and work with free software, I've found out the hard way that you're pretty much out of luck.

Today, I'm hardly able to make ends meet. I've been lucky enough not having to pay rent this summer so I've been able to get along fairly cheap, but now that summer is over, things are changing and I have no idea what will come. I've got a few leads and I can probably get around 40-50% of the money I need working from home on free software, but the rest? Well, I hope to find either people who can pay me to work on free software from my home in the form of donations, or companies who can hire me to do some part-time programming or system administration for them. Now only time will tell.

So this became a little more about myself than was intended, but I want to make everyone who thinks that they can make money by doing only free software realise exactly what they're getting in to. There will be times when you simply won't be able to pay your rent and your income will be very irregular at best. Think once, twice, three times and more about that. If you're not absolutely certain that free software is something you must work with full time, then you're probably better off taking a regular job and putting down some hours on your spare time to do free software development.

You can be a free software advocate and work from "within the system" to try to change the company you work for and introduce them to free software.

Then again, if you can pull it off, then there's rewards greater than anyone can even begin to imagine waiting for you. It's the reward of being able to look back at what you've done and feel genuinely happy about it. The feeling of having done something with your life that has helped hundreds, perhaps thousands of people around the world. That's what I feel every day when I go to sleep, a genuine satisfaction about the work I've done that night. Sure, I haven't been able to make ends meet this month and I don't know where that will take me, but I'm happy. I haven't been this happy for many, many years and I wouldn't want to have it any other way.

Feel free to mail me at .