Say a few words for WPS.

My Perspective#

Regarding the incident of WPS allegedly locking local documents, in the absence of any concrete evidence, my opinion is: at most, it reflects a lack of technical ability and should not be attributed to subjective malicious behavior. It should not be elevated to the level of domestic word processing software. Below are two main points:

"Domestic word processing software" can be criticized based on technical ability and stability, but it should not be labeled with subjective censorship content or interference with user creativity.
Damaging or losing user documents is not a unique "feature" of "domestic word processing software." Users should have the awareness of backing up files and not overly rely on software, as software is created by humans.

Firstly, the scrutiny and management of cloud files is an understandable action, as a single oversight combined with public opinion could potentially ruin a company. However, WPS is not obligated to scrutinize local files. Locking or deleting them only brings trouble to themselves. Regarding the cloud files and file synchronization provided by WPS, considering user experience, there will inevitably be a significant amount of interaction between cloud files and their associated local files. From the user's perspective, there is no noticeable difference between the two files, but behind the scenes, there is complex software logic. As a leading domestic word processing software, theoretically, there should be no issues with the software logic. However, considering the actual complexity, it is entirely possible for problems to occur. This is why I lean towards this being a technical ability issue.

Although there is no difference in the outcome, from the user's perspective, word processing software lacks credibility. However, if we follow the supervisor's argument, "domestic word processing software" would be condemned directly due to the extension of their hand interfering with content creation. If we evaluate it based on the insufficiency of technical ability (assuming that WPS did indeed lock user's local files), upon careful analysis, it is due to the interaction process with cloud files. The problem can be solved by not using cloud services and using the offline version for government and enterprise use.

On the other hand, file synchronization as a "service" is not as easy as it seems. Even Microsoft, with its strength, does not have flawless synchronization. A simple search can find similar issues, some of which are even more severe than WPS "locking" files.

As for the supervisor's mention of the unacceptable consequences of content loss and work progress due to software behavior, I believe what needs to be considered is providing the necessary disaster recovery measures for the importance of documents, rather than relying on the hope that the software will never make mistakes and that the hard drive will never fail.

In this segment, the supervisor's response seems more like expressing dissatisfaction with censorship interfering with creativity and concerns about future serious consultation on creation, with WPS becoming the scapegoat. As an engineer with a slight connection to software in China, although I think WPS has indeed made mistakes, I still hope it can survive.

Supervisor's Reply#

As an engineer, you may be right.
As a Chinese person, you also know that certain issues go beyond software.
As a user, you don't need to consider where the pressure comes from. You can vote with your feet and your money.

陈不易