# Is anybody interested in Kingsoft Office?



## pjincz (Aug 9, 2013)

Hello everyone.

I am a developer of Kingsoft Office. And I'm one of the wps-community group members. We are intending to port Kingsoft Office to Unix and Unix-like systems.

Last year we ported Kingsoft Office to Linux. And last week, I ported Kingsoft Office to FreeBSD successfully.  But we are limited by our limited develop resources. So I'm curious about this: does anybody need Kingsoft Office for FreeBSD? Is there anybody using FreeBSD as their desktop?

More about Kingsoft Office: http://wps-community.org

Here is a screenshot of Kingsoft Office for FreeBSD.


Jin


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## sossego (Aug 10, 2013)

Because the software was developed in China, you may want to ask for it to be in /usr/ports/chinese.


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## pjincz (Aug 10, 2013)

sossego said:
			
		

> Because the software was developed in China, you may want to ask for it to be in /usr/ports/chinese.



Developed in China does not meaning developed for China. /usr/ports/chinese is intended for Chinese users' needs.


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## graudeejs (Aug 10, 2013)

Sometimes Libre/OpenOffice can suck, so another option would be appreciated.

However, Kingsoft Office seems to be closed source and is developed in China. No offence, but I wouldn't trust it unless its source is opened. In fact I don't trust any closed source software no matter where it's from: America, China, Russia, India. I don't even trust my blob nVidia driver.

You can call me paranoid.

A question: is it developed with Java?


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## pjincz (Aug 11, 2013)

graudeejs said:
			
		

> Sometimes Libre/OpenOffice can suck, so another option would be appreciated.
> 
> However, Kingsoft Office seems to be closed source and is developed in China. No offence, but I wouldn't trust it unless its source is opened. In fact I don't trust any closed source software no matter where it's from: America, China, Russia, India. I don't even trust my blob nVidia driver.
> 
> ...



No, it's developed with C/C++. Closed source and made in China is the most barrier we met. Thank you for your reply.


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## sossego (Aug 12, 2013)

pjincz said:
			
		

> Developed in China does not meaning developed for China. /usr/ports/chinese is intended for Chinese users' needs.


The original WPS was used in China before it became Kingsoft. It would be a product that Chinese users- users in China- would be familiar with based on product history. Unlike Microsoft Office, it does not need an emulation layer. <--- This is a marketing argument and not one about programming or compatibility.


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## drhowarddrfine (Aug 12, 2013)

pjincz said:
			
		

> ...does anybody need Kingsoft Office for FreeBSD?


Never heard of it myself so that's one uphill battle you would have to fight.


> Is there anybody using FreeBSD as their desktop?


Lots, including me. My little company does not use Linux.


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## vermaden (Aug 12, 2013)

Hi @pjincz

I use FreeBSD as a desktop and as a workstation, so I would love to try _Kingsoft Office_ on FreeBSD, if it's better than _LibreOffice_ I would switch to _Kingsoft Office_, and thanks for porting it to FreeBSD.


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## graudeejs (Aug 12, 2013)

Using FreeBSD as desktop as well, BTW.


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## fonz (Aug 12, 2013)

graudeejs said:
			
		

> Using FreeBSD as desktop as well, btw.


Same here. I have to take care of some Linux boxes as well, but personally I use FreeBSD exclusively so that includes desktop usage.


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## bkouhi (Aug 12, 2013)

Another vote for porting Kingsoft Office to FreeBSD. I use FreeBSD as desktop and I spend lots of my day in LibreOffice. I am satisfied with it and I have almost no problem with LibreOffice, but I will try Kingsoft Office when you port it and I would switch to it if I found it better than LibreOffice. Thanks for porting it


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## jrm@ (Aug 12, 2013)

Thanks for considering porting to FreeBSD.

I too use FreeBSD exclusively as my desktop OS (well I use Windows in VirtualBox on rare occasions).  I'm not much of an office suite user, but I use LibreOffice from time to time.  If Kingsoft Office were available for FreeBSD I would consider giving it a go, but as closed software it would have to be much better than LibreOffice for me to switch to it permanently.



			
				graudeejs said:
			
		

> ..I don't trust any closed source software no matter where it's from...



I recall you preferring Opera?


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## graudeejs (Aug 12, 2013)

jrm said:
			
		

> I recall you preferring Opera?



What choice did I have?


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## ShelLuser (Aug 12, 2013)

Although I don't use FreeBSD as my main desktop nor use any of the freely available office suites I'd still like to vote in favour of adding a new Office suite to the ports collection. Because in the end it's all a matter of choice; and the more, the merrier.

And in my opinion FreeBSD could possibly be an even better suited Unix-like platform for your Office suite because unlike most Linux distributions FreeBSD does not shun closed source or commercial software. If you can come up with something useful then they'd welcome it in the ports collection.

So I definitely vote in favour.


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## zspider (Aug 12, 2013)

You have my vote, an OpenOffice/LibreOffice alternative would be nice. FreeBSD "workstation" user here too.


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## da1 (Aug 20, 2013)

+1 here*.*


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## htutt (Aug 20, 2013)

Hi @pjincz,

You have my vote too. I also would like to try a new office suite for FreeBSD. Thank you for your contribution.


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## Captain_HM_Murdock (Aug 21, 2013)

Sure why not.


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## NewGuy (May 7, 2014)

I have used KingSoft on Linux and it worked really well. Would definitely like to see a port over to FreeBSD. I don't care where the software is written, but I would prefer an open source approach. Wherever possible I use open source applications.


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## fernandel (May 9, 2014)

+1 here.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Aug 26, 2014)

I've been looking around for this, now called WPS Office. It seems like FreeBSD support has stalled. Has anybody here heard anything since this thread?


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## gerrys (Dec 29, 2014)

pjincz said:


> Hello everyone.
> 
> I am a developer of Kingsoft Office. And I'm one of the wps-community group members. We are intending to port Kingsoft Office to Unix and Unix-like systems.
> 
> ...


Hi Jin

I am using FreeBSD 10 RELEASE with Xfce desktop - I was using Xubuntu and I would really appreciate Kingsoft on my machine...


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## Knosence (Sep 11, 2016)

I love WPS, In my opinion, it is better than LibreOffice!! 
+1


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## kpedersen (Sep 11, 2016)

Is it just me or would maintaining a large closed-source office suite be very tricky for the developer? I mean, get the LibreOffice binaries for 9.x release and run them on a 10.x system, I doubt they would work.

Yes, the developer could compile it all statically but closed source software simply has a tendancy to stop working one day and die off. Kinda something I dislike and will not personally be using it for that reason.

I see this software as a very short term alternative to LibreOffice and probably isn't worth the effort for the developer to finish the port tbh. You might as well be using i386-wine and Microsoft Office. At least this solution will remain working for the foreseeable future.


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## abishai (Sep 11, 2016)

I use FreeBSD as workstation, however I doubt I would use close source software. For lightweight alternative to LibreOffice we already have  math/gnumeric and editors/abiword


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## Snurg (Sep 11, 2016)

I'd really like to have more office solutions for FreeBSD available.
However, I am afraid that Kingsoft apparently dropped the idea of porting their office suite to FreeBSD, as this thread seems to be a three-year-old zombie.


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## abishai (Sep 11, 2016)

Ouch, I didn't notice the necromancer. 
That's the way how closed source things work. Good, they didn't port it as port and cease support after some time is much, much worse thing.


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## kpedersen (Sep 12, 2016)

abishai said:


> That's the way how closed source things work. Good, they didn't port it as port and cease support after some time is much, much worse thing.



I am almost tempted to bookmark this thread ready for the next time someone attempts to gauge interest in a closed source FreeBSD port 

I attempted the same thing not too long ago with a game that I could not release the source of (not just yet due to Steam license) and almost felt like I was insulting BSD users by withholding the source from them. I decided to wait until I can release the entire source code before I will try that again haha.


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## Phillipe Knopp (Jan 23, 2017)

The first question was, "Is anybody interested in WPS Office for FreeBSD" and although the YES did win the "election" (15 votes plus mine, now, sixteen) nothing happened.

Since it did not came into ports* is there any WPS Office binary for FreeBSD ?*

See, I came from Linux and trying GhostBSD right now, I have to study my college disciplines and *the content is all microsoft powerpoint* (fucking professors) *which have a crap compatibility w/ LibreOffice*, in Linux I always used WPS (and ONLY Office lately too) to study, will I have to flee from FreeBSD and seek Linux again ?

*Believe me my wish is to keep GhostBSD* but I need to read those freaking MS power point files.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Jan 23, 2017)

I understand the value of Kingsoft as an application, but wonder why the developer posted the question here in the first place. Some people are just blind to the concept of open source I guess.


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## Phillipe Knopp (Jan 23, 2017)

OJ said:


> I understand the value of Kingsoft as an application, but wonder why the developer posted the question here in the first place. Some people are just blind to the concept of open source I guess.


Is the matter open-souce thing ? Debian is open-source, I mean, Linuxes are open-source, they have WPS though.

From what I gathered the first asking-guy oferred to keep WPS in FreeBSD ports, now you do have a problem w/ open-source (I guess), keeping proprietary soft in ports, is it possible ?

But at very least we could have a binary to install WPS, anyone disagree ?


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## Deleted member 9563 (Jan 23, 2017)

The thing is that closed source is guaranteed to cause problems at some point. Somebody is going to be dependent on it to read something for college with a deadline and it's going to be broken because they just did an update.  That said, I vote for having it available as a binary anyway.


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## Phillipe Knopp (Jan 24, 2017)

OJ said:


> The thing is that closed source is guaranteed to cause problems at some point. Somebody is going to be dependent on it to read something for college with a deadline and it's going to be broken because they just did an update.  That said, I vote for having it available as a binary anyway.


But don't worry about it, in Linux I already underwent a situation like that, ok it's not pleasant but people there still prefer having the option of using the software (even with some drawback once in a while) than not having at all.

All in all I agree w/ you that a binary you already be awesome.


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