[jacquesm]

(1) definitely yes

(2) definitely yes, but stay away from front end web stuff if you want to avoid it

(3) that depends on the visibility of the product and on whether or not you think it will help you land a job afterwards, a well respected maintainer of project 'X' or a high profile contributor would not find it all that hard to get a job with a company that is a large scale user of 'X'.

(4) that's an interesting thing, not the first one that I would try but I like your 'out of the box' thinking. Personally I'd go for something that is more in demand but that people dislike, such as either administrative software or embedded. The jobs are more interesting than they seem on the outside and typically job security is reasonably good because these are not boom-or-bust companies.

(5) you should definitely look for better jobs continuously for the first couple of years

(6) yes: concentrate on finding out which country is the most friendly with your country in terms of accepting immigrants and then work backwards from there. That's the biggest problem you will have to deal with the rest is essentially a side-show.