Speaking up for WPS

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My View

Focusing only on the so‑called incident of WPS locking local documents, given that there is currently no solid evidence, my take is: at most it reflects insufficient technical capability; intentional malicious behavior should be ruled out. This shouldn’t be escalated to a blanket judgment on all “domestic word processors.” In short, I have two main points:

“Domestic word processors” can and should be criticized for technical capability and stability, but we shouldn’t hastily label them as engaging in subjective content censorship or interfering with user creation.
Messing up or losing user documents is not a “feature” unique to “domestic word processors.” Users need to be conscious of backing up files and not place blind trust in software; after all, software is written by humans.

First, everyone can understand the need to review and manage cloud files; a single slip, combined with public opinion pressure, could potentially sink a company. But when it comes to local files, WPS has no obligation to review them, and locking or deleting them would only create trouble for itself. For the cloud file and file sync features WPS provides, a decent user experience requires extensive interaction between cloud files and their associated local files. From the user’s perspective, you don’t really sense a difference between the two, but behind that are complex software logics. As a leading domestic word processor, in theory WPS shouldn’t have logical problems in its software; yet given the real‑world complexity, issues can absolutely occur. That’s why I tend to see this as a technical capability issue.

Although the end result is the same from the user’s perspective—word processors become less trustworthy—if we follow “督工” and swing the hammer that way, then “domestic word processors” are outright condemned as maliciously reaching into and interfering with content creation. If instead we define it as a matter of insufficient technical strength (assuming WPS really did lock users’ local files), then upon closer analysis, this arises from the interaction with cloud files. You can avoid the problem by not using cloud services or by using the government/enterprise offline version.

On the other hand, file sync as a “service” is really not that easy to do well. Even a powerhouse like Microsoft can’t guarantee that OneDrive sync is foolproof. A simple search turns up similar problems, some even more serious than WPS “locking” files.

As for the point “督工” raised—that consequences such as content loss and disrupted work progress due to software behavior are unacceptable—I think what we need to consider is providing proper disaster‑recovery‑level protection in line with the importance of the document, rather than pinning our hopes on the software never making a mistake in any file operation or the hard drive never failing.

This segment from “督工” feels more like an expression of dissatisfaction with censorship interfering in creation, and concern about the future of serious consulting‑type content creation, with WPS serving as the punching bag. As an engineer in China who has a bit of connection with software, I do think WPS is indeed pretty lousy, but I still hope it manages to keep going.

“督工”’s Reply

As an engineer, you may be right.
As a Chinese, you also know that some issues lie outside of software.
As a user, there’s no need to care where the pressure comes from; you can just vote with your feet and your money.

My View

“督工”’s Reply

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