I'm a 'hobby' level at most things I do :) So, my own opinion might not count. But I can say that I do free stuff for several reasons:

1. The first and the most important. It's one of good ways of saying 'Thank you' to the world of free software :) I use Debian/Linux, it's free. Blender, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc... etc... etc... I like it. And if I like it, then someone will like my free stuff, thou it's not that pro level. I love to see people happy even if I can do just something small... 

2. I do it for fun. Yes, I'm not pro. And yes, sometimes I have a lot of free time to learn different programs. I have a lot of free time to write games. And it's not something I have to do. It's the thing I'm just having fun doing. Now, as I have gained some experience in 3D modelling my games might get some graphic and even might be interesting not only to geeks.

3. I keep it for backtracking. E.g. I'm very happy with my current job as a scientist. And, e.g. if something changes and I'd like to try a programmer job... what can I present as my 'achievements' other than some narrow-branch mathematical models solutions which could be understood only by a dedicated scientist? A free game would be perfect to my opinion.

I'm really sorry to hear that.  I'm not in this for the money, but I've found that posting here has gotten me a lot of exposure and a fair amount of paid work (though some of it was indirect, through contacts I made here or what have you).  I imagine the music side of things is pretty different from pixel art, though.

Im also a hobbyist and dont do this for the coin neither, if you search my submissions there a lot of experimental stuff, i do like learning and replicating things i see somewhere else. Im indeed colaborating with an open source game and that wont help into my resumee or someone around me would ever care. My drive is the will to learn and help someone along the way; and i have no use for 3d or any artistic skill into my life, i dont benefit or live from it.

But having been into this Open/free world for a while i have learned a few things; Maybe you are not selling yourself well enougth?

Being a credit line into that forgotten button of Credits wont help you much, neither being active into just a few projects forum. So i would like you to reconsider your decision and make a last try before going that route. What can you do? research which are the major sites for game developement, both free and paid, OGA here is one of the biggest into the "libre" category, Unity asset store is all the rage these days among hobby game programmers.

With that information start releasing a song a day into all the open source pages, make sure to sell yourself when you post them "Im an experienced composer that has made music for many games... this one was for Wesnoth... im open for comisions at affordable prices.. support me on Patreon (about Patreon, do you know what it is? if not research it or any alike, you can make some money that way by getting some sponsors to your works) you can find many more and exclusive ones into my webpage". Because you neeed a personal webpage with your works, not a facebook account.

Why? dont release everything on those pages, keep many exclusively on your website so people go there. That opens a few ways to make money and still be "Open", first publicity, i have heard its a pretty low revenue, but better than nothing, second a donation link and Patreon (or similar) link, low chance maybe; next make thematics music packs that can be downloaded for a small price and constains songs exclusives to them (remember to add short demos to those exclusive on the related pack) people trust paypal, remember that while you charge, say 2€ for your action music pack and add a direct link to it besides the price. Make a mega pack with everything worthy you have composed and sell it also at low prizes, I would say you have more chances of earning something selling many cheap than few and expensive. Sell those very same packs in all paid developer pages, in fact, go and do it rigth now on Unity asset store; keep the same prices everywhere, hobbyist normally wont pay much and its unfair if you price them differently depending on the buying source.

That way you remain mostly Open friendly with a few exclusives (that can have open licenses as well) and earn some money and fame. It all depends on your quality and effort to publicise yourself; Also Patreon can be a very good income source if you manage to convince many people to support you, some people just release CC0 stuff because of much they get for each of it. Just get people to know of your work.

And now pay me for revealing to you my bussines master plan ;)

It's not about getting anything back for whay you've done. It's about doing what you enjoy and making a change while having fun.

How do you suppose the culture to work? With all the copyrights nonsense, when you don't have the rights to your own memories? What's the music streaming services worth if they'll leave you with nothing when they sink or are temporarily out of service? I'm doing as much as I can for my stuff to be accessible for free. It doesn't matter if the people need it to consume it or to make it their own, even if it means abusing or insulting either my works or me personally. This is how I think the culture should work, period. And for the most part it does work that way, above and beyond all the copyrights and the people behind it.

Now, I don't have any ideas regarding making money with my nasty attitude. I'm not good at making money to be honest, and I don't want to be. Most of the time I'm letting other people solve this problem, if someone wants my services, I'm up for it. I don't have any sort of FB page to build myself a fan base, my flickr account seems to be possessed though and people just keep following me there. If I'm in a mess, like now, I'm doing what I can to get my finances back on track. I'm working for minor fees anyways, so it's easy to get busy.

If you feel like you're not making money as a musician, and you want to make money more than music, there are better paid jobs out there. If you want to make music, well, welcome to the free market.

Hi Mattias,

Sorry to hear this. It's hard to make work and recieve no credit for it. Having said that I have just discovered your work through reading this post and then finding your webpage through Google. Amazing work! I'm looking forward to listening to the rest of your stuff.

Unconditional love is not the path to reciprocity, nor are free works the path to fame.

It is true that some use free culture as a glorified advertising service, but they contribute nevertheless. This is not a proving ground full of would-be professionals. You see an economic microcosm, where, if you can't be paid in cash, at least you'll be compensated in exposure. But free culture is a social cause. OGA exists because Bart believes in that cause. Not everyone is a true believer, but the underlying idea is that information wants to be free, and that the act of giving is self-gratifying. If you are overly attached to your work, you shouldn't be in the business of giving it away.

@cerendir: as I see it, If you can find a place where you are getting paid for your work (which you are good at and enjoy doing) then go there and get paid. Do not worry that it will not be CC-BY or some other open license. Payment is a very concrete way of saying "thank you, your jobs is worth paying for, it's appreciated and really needed". I'd prefer this to a possibility that my work may be used by some hobbyist who (most likely) will never get to the finish line with his/her project.

However, if you feel like sharing -- share. Without expecting anything. Or better, like you did, join a project where your are asked to create free asset and then thanked for that as a contributor.

In summary: if you do not get the kick out of doing it for "free" then stop doing that. Become a professional, grow, get paid and don't worry.

I'm not sure I've ever seen somebody make a living wage from making libre content on the internet, unless it's by getting a paying job making proprietary content.  For the most part, we still don't even know how to make money on a game yet.

Crowdfunding seems promising, as this works for a lot of indie musicians.  Although not usually libre, they usually have pretty lax views on sharing, sometimes giving away albums for free or "pay what you want", sometimes to the point that the distinction is largely immaterial.  I think a key point that leads to sustainability for many of them is an ongoing relationship with their fans, which is something that crowdfunding is great for.  If somebody puts a few dollars toward the creation of something, they (perhaps correctly) feel that they have been a part of its creation, and artists will sometimes let backers have a say in the outcome.

Kim Boekbinder is a pretty good example of somebody who's made a living with this sort of model.  She recently did a Kickstarter where she's creating an album of one-minute songs, one song per $100 pledged, and it raised more money than I'd need to live for a year.  She also has made the album exclusive to backers, so while I only pledged $5 (just 1/20 of a one-minute song), I still feel that I had a hand in the album's creation and also I'm getting something that not everybody has access to.  She touched on this in an interview a few months ago, that people are more willing to pay for future work than for past work (pay me and I'll keep making content that you like, vs. pay me and get this album that you could torrent for free).  Admittedly, this presumably would not have been nearly as successful if she didn't already have a loyal fandom -- some of whom pay a monthly subscription -- but that's just an example of how to monetize on a concept through an audience.

Cerendir, you surely know, what "hobby" is. People aren't doing stuf to be admired by others, but mostly for their own sense of acomplishment or to enable other people to fullfill their dreams, which is satisfactory enough by itself. No one expects you continue to deliver free goods despite all odds. If you feel like you need to pull yourself together, that's also OK.

Regarding what you've got, I'm certain you can really only put some important titles in your CV, that's a huge boost when looking for paid jobs, but won't feed you. If you really need an example of how "getting coverage" looks in practice in FLOSS world, check out Justin Nichols (justinoperable) career - we were starting together at PARPG, and his persistence and mobility really got him some success.

If you haven't been lucky getting rewarded by the community, look for work on sites where people work on commercial projects, like maybe gamedev.net, ask openly for financially supported works. You'll get the same credit, but there's a greater chance for getting your wallet a bit less skinny. Digital entertainment is a huge market, still growing.

I'm in a situation, where I need to get some regular income, otherwise I can close this chapter of my life entirely and start professionally picking berries in Scandinavia. And that's not a bad job, you know, I'd be a happy hillbilly. I'm not trying to be bitter, just avoiding delusions.

@ Q_X: "Cerendir, you surely know, what "hobby" is. People aren't doing stuf to be admired by others, but mostly for their own sense of acomplishment or to enable other people to fullfill their dreams, which is satisfactory enough by itself."

Uh... I'm kinda wondering if you know what a hobby is.  Some people are entirely self-motivated, but it's far from universal, especially with game assets (which are, after all, made to be used).  If I didn't get any feedback I probably wouldn't be nearly as interested in putting stuff up under free licenses.

The only ways I've seen OSS 'monetized' has been offering services and gaining exposure for a project. Gaining exposure seems to be a hit or miss thing, and services only work on large projects or those that can be adapted to niche uses.

A better option might be some of the sites that sell assets, there seems to be a strong response to good reasonably priced assets.

Redshrike, from my personal experience, you're either self-motivated or not motivated at all. I haven't yet found a guy who's doing game art cause he likes hanging around with his friends, and this is how social hobby looks like. Tedious teamwork in spare time demands persistence and maturity.

cdoty, things may be different with more good (playable, stable, popular) games hitting the market, LPC assets are of enormous importance here. Imagine Wesnoth folks starting a campaign and gathering funds for RTS version, or 0AD for turn-based flavor, top-down UFO on mobile devices, Planeshift that actually works and is cool to play, GIMP and Inkscape that have no bloat, proper drop-caps or working blur in Scribus etc, etc. People would pay for having that made, I believe. Again, I have to remind justin's portraits for FLARE.

Active part of our community mostly consists of students and hobbyists, at least from my experience, involved in own small projects. With the speed a single person is able to learn and develop code, either a game is simple, or technologies and aesthetics become obsolete before a game reaches a level of feature-full, stable playability.

After all there are people living thanks to other people, who are paying for apps to remind them to water their plants. Making money in digital entertainment industry can't be that hard, you know.

Hi Mr. Westlund,

   sorry you are feeling bummed! :< this is an interesting point and I've thought about it a bit too, as a fellow composer. I think we should keep creating music, and any at for that matter, because it's fun and exciting. If it stops being fun, that's probably a good time to take a break.

I think I get what you mean by feedback - it would be nice if more people offered constructive criticism (or not lol)- but if people keep downloading your music, that's a great compliment I would say! but as for trying to make some more profit from your work, maybe you could try having a Bandcamp, and offer certain music for free and for a price. I haven't made a lot by offering a pay-what-you-want option, but I've made a little. Also, I think it's probably a good idea to gain mastery of a variety of styles (even those electronic genres lol) to expand the usefulness of your compositional abilities. additionally, if you wouldn't mind, there are forums for other media like visual novels (i.e. lemmasoft) who have people looking for composers. I would definitely advocate posting some of your work here on OGA though; it's been extremely helpful in getting my work exposed (thanks Bart!)

good luck, and remember to have fun! if anything, compose first for yourself, then others. ^_^

Here are some concrete things you can do:

- I see you are on the Battle for Wesnoth credits: http://wiki.wesnoth.org/Credits#Music but you have a personal website too: http://mattiaswestlund.net/ Why isn't your name directly linked to your website? I don't know about the bureaucracy there but I'd be screaming about not having those credits linked directly to your profile. Same goes for every prominent place that you are credited. Also, do you often use the "cerendir" handle? I'd list that prominently along with your real name.

- Your personal website itself doesn't show the most relevant information first: who are you and why should I care? In your case, you should show your notable projects and works clearly, at the front. Instead most of the real estate is devoted to a personal blog, and only people who already know you would care to read that stuff. Contrast instead with say, Bill Brown: http://billbrownmusic.com/index.php yes it's an ugly design but it clearly shows the major works he's involved with: movies, TV, games, so I know exactly why I should care about this person. So the priority of information that you should be showing is: projects, music, recent news / blog, and everything else, and don't hide the most important information behind menu links.

- I see you've recently moved to soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/mattiaswestlund this is smart because it's a superior platform for music, and increases your exposure since people can add you to their playlists, or get linked via recommendations, increasing drive-by traffic. Not to mention the time-based commenting system so people can constructively criticise your work. Except, you only have two tracks on there. I assume you're in the process of uploading your complete portfolio there?

- And what about OGA? You should also add your complete portfolio here (or at least those you're willing to share under libre licenses). OGA is a small but dedicated community, even mediocre works eventually get a few comments. Your works would be among the highest quality music here so I'd expect a lot of useful feedback.

Why contribute to OSS. I don't know. If you have a hobby like a game to make there's a reason, other than that... Not sure. Only certain types of people are accepted in opensource/freesoftware these days. If you're a woman you're golden, if you're a man... well you better profess belief in certain things.

I know I will never get anywhere in life and never get anything/person I really want. It's just simply banned. This is not a man's country/world. No reason not to give everything away, it's no use nomatter what anyway. Even if you amass wealth and it's not stripped from you, you won't beable to spend it on what will really bring you happiness.

As for debian (someone mentioned): They ban you and reject your work if you disagree with social political views held by the majority: They judge your work based on the views or opinions you hold. They are not good people. Don't ever try to contribute to them unless you agree with the current majority views in the USA and Europe on social issues. They will claim that you have never created ANYTHING. I really really hate them, what they have become. They used to be great, totally different now.

Honestly, if you're not a feminist or a social justice warrior, your not wanted anywhere in opensource. This is what I have found. It wasn't always this way but this is no place for men any longer. We are scum and unwanted.

I hope there's a sea change sooner or later. Maybe russia will lead it, who knows.

Put your music on OGA! I bet you'd get loads of feedback. The encouraging kind, even! I listened to your music on soundcloud and I like it enough that I already want to make a place for it in my game. Not that it may mean much to you until the game is played by anyone, but even if you had zero fans before, you've got one now. :)

This project often uses music from OGA.

I know that you do not really get much back, if you offer things under free software licenses.

This may be possible in other cases, but the free software game developers are a very small community, so no matter how good you are or how good you market yourself, you will never get much back, since there is not enough customers.

I release my things under very liberal licenses, because this is what I need from others also, since I am building a free open source game. I cannot use paid assets in that case, because they restrict my freedom to use them in a free open source project, so anything commercial is useless to me, not because it is commercial, but because of the licenses that come with it.

MikeeUSA,

As for debian (someone mentioned): They ban you and reject your work if you disagree with social political views held by the majority: They judge your work based on the views or opinions you hold.

Could you, please, give us a couple of examples for such actions? I'd be glad for the FLOSS commuity to have best software available on major platforms regardless of politics. If there's something like that going on - an important piece of software is rejected without carefully valuing it - there's something going wrong there, posiibly even an attempt to hijack the project, and I'm qute sure I'll have to rethink some stuff for security reasons.

cerendir, we all have heard your stuff this way or another. Dunno how to compliment you any better, thats impressive by itself. Put it wherever people can look for it, stick the links to it wherever you can, put "like it" buttons wherever you can, advertize yourself as an artist for hire in every footnote on every forum. And don't let black bile take control, we all have bad moments and we often smile despite it.

I'm really gravitating towards picking berries in some forest in the northern part of your country, I'm pretty comfy outdoors. I'm looking for such job offers currently. 

Q_x: Recent example: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=770314

Older Example: esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1310