David, Actually in the Middle East it is less about enforcing copyright laws than politics. Hardware and software is expensive. 400 USD (cost for Office?) is more than a teachers salary in my country (BA/MA). Most people get their software bundled with the hardware when they buy it. If it breaks, they go back to the shop, pay a little fee and have it 'fixed' which very often just means a reinstall. Also, MSFT products usually take about a year longer to be released in the Middle East. That is mainly because they have a whole division I think that works just on making everything MSFT work in Arabic and Hebrew. And making sure that Right-to-left works just as it should. (it "works" on LTR Windows, but it's fscked up. Hancom Linux came out with an Arabic/Hebrew version of it's office apps. Already the Tunisian government is working with them. There are political considerations like American vs. Asian/Europea but the biggest problem is moolah. MSFT takes too much of your moolah. So is the Middle East ready to jump on the bandwagon? My answer would be yes. The real question is whether the bandwagon is ready for the Middle East. Hancom Linux realized that it had an Arabic population of 300 million (give or take) add to that about 6 million Israelis, and several handful of millions of Iranis and Turks and you have a market that eclipses the US. As far as jobs go. If you have the skills you'll find a job in the Middle East. There is a marked need for people trained in specialized fields. Being Westerner doesn't matter. In my little town of 15 thousand we have about 20 different languages spoken between non-Arab spouses and non-Arabs living there. This is not the norm, but every larger Middle Eastern city (especially capitals) will have a western contingent. If you get hired as an admin (any kind of OS) then most places probably won't stop you from changing the servers to Linux is my guess. They just need to make sure that they have someone to take care of things if you leave. Or someone who can figure it out. So my best bet would be to just customize a distro that has Arabic support (I know for sure Red Hat does) with an office app that has Arabic support and a bunch of games will all the dependencies figured out. Burn it and you can sell the CD's for 10 Shekels each. About 2.5 USD). As long as Red Hat comes out with a new version every six months or so you can keep selling CD's with the latest stuff. Any LUG could work with local techies in the Middle East. Even better, I could have 20 Linux geeks touring Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan to survey the tech scene and get some much needed sun. It is not _that_ expensive if one goes as a group. We could even tailor the visit so that you get to meet with the relevant people at universities, Ministries. If you are willing to give presentations then prices come down a bit more. If there aren't enough people who want to go from this LUG then we could always extend the invitation to other LUGs. Samir M. Nassar