SoftMaker FreeOffice

Ok, I moved this request here since it is a Software request. This is where it belongs

For reference, this is the upstream URL: www.freeoffice.com/en/download/applications.

My thoughts on this package:

They offer a deb file but the source code is not available. It has a Proprietary (commercial) license. The license is rather restrictive. There is a tar package available for download but that appears to contain a bash script for installation and install binary packages directly. To me this is risky business, how do I know this package is safe? Trust? I never heard of this company before. Even if it is safe now, suppose some other company buys them and adds malware to the package. Their installation instructions advise adding their repo to your sources list so you will get updates (they also attempt to do that in the postinst script of the Debian package, more on that later). So in the event that a Malicious company buys them and adds malware and you have added their repo, then ap update/upgrade will install it with no questions asked on your system. I read security blogs and stuff like this HAPPENS, it even happened to a FOSS chrome extension a few months ago (that got noticed really quickly, but nonetheless ended up installed on alot of machines before it was removed by google).

Manjaro is Arch-based and is probably using the AUR repo. That repo contains "user produced content".  And Arch warns use at your own risk. Anything can be in that repo.

The deb file offered for download is poorly packaged. Lintian reports 33 errors, 23 warnings, and 1 info.


I do not know what to make of all those errors and warnings

As mentioned above, the deb file also contains code to add their repo to your sources lists. However, that failed to work when I tested the installation in a VM. I am unsure why, perhaps it has been disabled and just leftover code from previous packages. Not really worth my time debugging it.

To matters worse it tries to install its own icons to every single icon theme you have installed. That is also not how you do things, you install your icons only to the hicolor icon theme.

None of this installs a lot of confidence in me. Whoever packaged this application does not understand debian packaging well nor do they have a good understanding of linux.

I am not saying NO i just want to know what others think? What does SoftMaker FreeOffice offer that something like LibreOffice does not?