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I couldn't RTFA so I don't know if it's the same group but the Iraqi Linux Users Group headquartered in Baghdad is here.

Heh. Note the usual exponential decay in activity. Fickleness, thy name is Slashdot.

first, it's Arabic not Persian the offical language in Iraq.

and here is an answer for you :)

...right here. Netscape == Mozilla, and such, I bet.

Have to remember to check that page a day or two from now... there'll be a new "busiest hour", probably.

sorry I don't really understand what you meant in your comment.

however I'll just toss in some info hope it helps u understand better.

What I meant in English not being a factor (and I refered to an excellent Article posted on iraqilinux.org) is that communication between me and you and the rest of English speaking, technical world will not be obstructed by language barrier. I can undertsnad what your saying and you can understand what I say.

Also, as you may very well know, almost all system's development is done in English-like programming langauge and development platform. this is where the hardwork is done. The presentation layer of our systems (say for example webpages for our end users) needs to have Arabic (Iraqis speak Arabic as their native langauge) support.

what we are trying to do in Iraqilinux.org (and soon osiraq.org, an Iraqi open source movement portal) is to build bridges to link us to teh rest of teh world. Iraqis out side Iraq, like myself, specially that I left not too long ago have an opportunity since we know how things back there, and we educated ourselves with modern technology through our interaction with the western socity/technology/etc. And since we want to build bridges and establish links to different ppl. in different parts of teh world, English language is the langauge most of the occupants of this globe can communicate with, so our Portal is in English. We already know arabic, and there are 10,000 Arabic sites preaches and teaches and explains how to arabize, we are not intrested in re-inventing the wheel :-).

if you could point out what make you feel I was trolling here I'd really appreciate it, although this story became kinda old now ;) ... you are allways welcomed to comment on any issue regadring our portal(s) you can allways join us at iraqilinux.org

ciao 4 now.

There are few points I felt I need to reply to. yesm right now we (Iraqis) have no sovern country, yes we don't have enough electrcity, yes drinking water is hardly good enough for drinking and yes Computer and IT is just about the last on our list of necessities for survival. BUT, as Iraqis, teh ppl. who actully built teh first civilization, and got that wiped out and rebuilt more time than I have time to count in here, and as Iraqis, who were the first to come up with writing, and the first to write a law to govern the aspects of everyday life some 10,000 years ago. I think we are capable of rebuilding, and placing our country back at the level it rightfully deserves. As some guys mentioned above, we may not have enough electrecity, nor a sovern government. but we sure do have brain power. And since I'm speaking to a techincal crowd here, I assume most of you are familiar with "Multi-tasking", while we have ppl. who are capable of rebuilding a government system, law institutes and have the help to rebuild power station and other facilities, we, the "geeks" can at least start to raise our voices in parallel. Raise awarness of what Linux is, and what FLOSS is and most importantly how to benefit from it. So the argument that Iraq needs other stuff that are more important is kinda void, everyone should and must do what he/she can in his or her own field, and our field is Linux/OS. Anotehr point, people ahead of me talked about "Linux is free, the US won't benifit from it!" well, last time I checked, which is not too long ago, RedHat was a US company and the charge money for their solutions, minus Fedora. IBM, HP, Dell and other manfacturers make the hardware that Linux runs on it and it does cost money. I see the benefits for those companies just as good as the benefit of Microsoft and their technologies to the US. So that's another point that's void. Regarding Arabization, the majority of Iraqis are able to communicate in English as teh Iraqi education system teachs teh English language manditory starting at grade 5. University studies, specially for Engineering and Science are at least 85% English language. here is a report on why we have chosen English language on our Linux group web portal it explains how Arabic langauge, even though it's spoken by the majority of Iraqis, is not really a blocking factor in the way of English only technologies (Given that at least we have a browser that renders Arabic fonts and probably few mail and IM clients that does so too). So language also is not a factor. All in all, Iraq right now is *IS* a brand new harddrive, we have the brian power to run anything on it, and that anything better be Linux :P anyhoo, I hope I made my points, comments are welcomed. Nabil. (http://www.iraqilinux.org) p.s.: I'm an Iraqi Living in canada right now, left Iraq some 3 years ago, and kept close contact with Iraq, so my information is up2date)