We all know that Wikipedia is a great tool for learning more about various topics.  I just discovered another great use for it:  aiding in website translations.

My company, Web Lite Solutions, has hired someone to translate one of its web sites into Chinese.  The question arose: "What is open-source, i.e. how should it be translated to Chinese?"

The term open-source, in the developer community, takes on a greater meaning than the sum of its parts.  It is almost a brand name.  Hence it is important to get the proper Chinese translation, and not just a translation that means, more-or-less, the same thing.

 Wikipedia to the rescue!

I Went to the Open-source listing on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source).  Then I looked on lower left column of the page where it lists the different translations for this entry, and clicked on the chinese link  (http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BC%80%E6%94%BE%E6%BA%90%E4%BB%A3%E7%A0%81).  Presumably the title of this page should be the proper Chinese translation for "Open-source".  In addition, my translator is able to learn a number of other related translations by simply reading the article.