Kind of like GOLOS.IO is the Russian version of steemit (pretty cool for english speakers too) but they are not using the STEEM currency. They have their own currency called GOLOS, but if you visit their site it is basically steemit with mostly russian posts, has an #en tag section, and can tell the interface to be displayed in english, etc.
So that is an example of a Steemit, Inc. approved fork.
It might be worth to mention that @ned have supported Golos fork from the beginning, while lot of prominent community members were against it.
I suppose we have top thank him for that, he earned himself some praise for sure and the problems here weren't felt at least to me. Currently I think the best thing would be to develop the platform further and when communities are added, release it to the world after the beta is over, we can have different UI's different languages different coins but one steem :)
Sounds nice on paper, but I'm anxious to see if the team can make it happen, maybe there needs to at least 2-3 more steem fests by that time :D
and their name has to be cleared and spotless, if this is to reach @the.masses :D who were already here btw :D