I dont make living strictly off freelancing, but I make good deal extra cash doing freelancing here and there to suplement my full time Programming job.

1) I do not agree on everything should be open source. I spend alot of time making software and should be paid for my sweat and tears. If everything went open source then that would put alot of people in the poor house. Shareware makes no money? Not true at all. If you have a good product, there are plenty of people out there that are honest enough to pay for it. Especially business use products.

2) Lots of people have mid-life career changes. And they do well. Unfortunatly the way things are going these days, I wouldnt try to do solely Free lancing to start off.