Following a recent patch that translated Documentation/HOWTO into Japanese [story], a new patch offered a translation of the same document into Chinese. Li Yang noted, "currently Chinese involvement in Linux kernel is very low, especially [compared to China's large] population base. Language could be the main obstacle. Hopefully this document will help more Chinese to contribute to Linux kernel."

Linux creator Linus Torvalds noted that he was happy to see translations, "I think that the policies and processes parts of the documentation are things that make total sense to encourage translation of, because it's entirely possible that those are interesting and valid even to the people who aren't necessarily directly involved in the actual coding, and may well be relevant to managers etc who may not be _directly_ involed with the rest of the kernel developers." He then noted that he didn't see any reason to include the translations with the kernel proper, "that said, I don't think that merging the result into the standard kernel makes sense - like it or not, right now English ends up being required to be part of actually getting things into the 'standard' kernel, and as such, at _some_ point there has to be a connection point that switches over to English, and trying to make the translations be an in-kernel thing is thus kind of pointless." Rob Landley noted that he has started putting together a documentation site on which he will include these translations, "send me translations (preferably in HTML format), and I'll put 'em up. (I've already got the one that started this thread.)"