That description does not live up to the image I had of Scandinavian prisons. Although I suppose an 8 month sentence will never be about rehabilitation and can only be used as punishment.
However, it's important to keep in mind that his sentence is only 10 months, which may not even be served fully. Those months are going to be bad, but the guy will return to his normal life pretty soon. He's a community hero, and financially taken care of, so there's probably not a lot to be worried about in the mid to long term.
The prison is ranked as a "lower security class" prison (Class 2). With 1 being highest and 3 lowest. Considering that he dodged his sentence for several years it is not unreasonable to have him in the slightly higher security prison. Additonally I believe the class 3 prisons are "open prisons" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_prison ).
I don't know what life is like in other countries, but in the US the branding of having been to prison makes a normal life difficult. My brother made a bad mistake of striking a federal employee about ten years ago and he still can't get work doing more than clearing dishes because of it. He's brilliant, btw, but he'll probably never have an office job or similar ever again.
On the other hand, I don't think a regular office job is what Mr Sunde needs or wants. It's clear that he'll do bigger and more public things with his life.
(Not to mention that Sunde is pretty close to being a political prisoner, if you consider the details of how the case was carried out).
I don't get the elevation of these guys on some pedestal. I understand we all like getting stuff for free but TPB was not some political project. If they had really believed copyright was so evil they'd have built a site distributing great content people wanted to watch that was licensed liberally by its creators; thus proving that the open source model could work for movies and TV shows. They'd have done what Stallman did. But they didn't.
The TPB guys did break Swedish law (*as interpreted by the lower courts) but would not have been chased by the Swedish legal system if it wasn't for external pressure. If I remember correctly, there are also indications that the appeal was unfairly rejected, but I would have to read up on it to be certain.
Nothing like the stories I hear from the US which are all about concrete walls and toilets with no seat, unsanitary conditions, drug smuggling, violence, etc.