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[DeKaFu]

So, my laptop broke down and I inherited a laptop that was purchased from a place called "Computer Liquidators".

It came with this...thing. It's called "OFFICE One" and the logo is a stylized tiger eye. It's an office suite. To be exact, it's OpenOffice 2.something. Seriously. Besides all the icons being changed to the tiger-eye logo and programs being renamed from "OpenOffice (Writer, Calc, Impress, etc.)" to "OFFICE One (Writer, Calc, Impress, etc)" it's absolutely identical.

Well, actually, it also includes some things that aren't part of OpenOffice. I see an "OFFICE One Paint.net" and "OFFICE One Safety-box v7" among others.

The weirdest thing is it also includes an "OFFICE One Games" folder. I haven't run any of them, but the games it has listed are "Bomberic 2" "Pharoahs Curse" "Rainbow Islands Candyland" "Robots" "The Postman - In the country" and "Water in Fire 2". I've never heard of any of them.

The company apparently behind it is called "Issendis". I can find absolutely no mention of them on the Internet except on their own website, which is in french. Ditto for "OFFICE One".

Frankly, it makes me kind of uneasy. The whole thing seems so shady. From what I could gather on the company website it sounds like you're supposed to buy a license for the suite, but it doesn't appear to be for sale anywhere. Is it even legal to sell OpenOffice under a different name? It doesn't seem like it should be. I'm a little worried there might be some malware buried in it somewhere.

Oh, I almost forgot. I discovered that it was installed on here when I tried to install OpenOffice. Apparently it blocks the installation of OpenOffice, whether intentionally or not, by tricking it into thinking that a newer version (itself) is already installed. Even though it appears to be at least four years old.

I'm hoping someone else might have better luck than me figuring out what the heck the deal with it is. Just so I know if it's been secretly keylogging me or something.

[Dasleah]

Sounds like it's just a bunch of open source and appropriately licensed bits of software - and yes, it is entirely legal to sell and / or alter them as they see fit.

But odds are it does have some malware in there, and god knows what the re-brander fucked up in the code in the process of changing the names and .ico files. I'd nuke it and replace it with the updated versions of the 'proper' software. At least then you've got the latest features and versions and don't have to rely on a third-party vendor to update properly.

[ein]

Just nuke the whole damn hard drive.

[Little]

Nuke it from orbit!

Also, don't use any peripherals if it looks shady. It'd suck to have cleared the hard drive and then get infected by the same thing, forcing you to wipe again.

[G-Flex]

Sounds like it's just a bunch of open source and appropriately licensed bits of software - and yes, it is entirely legal to sell and / or alter them as they see fit.

Ah, provided you follow the terms of the license, of course. In GPL terms, that means making available the source, as well as releasing any modifications/derivative works you've made under GPL as well. I wouldn't be surprised if these people are violating something.

[Garrie]

I wouldn't be surprised if these people are violating something.

Well, the OP already said "they're french", violating "something" goes without saying

[Armok]

Format C

[Sean Mirrsen]

Water in Fire 2 is actually a very interesting (and mildly original) shoot-em-up type of game. It could use a slightly different attack system though (as in, the same as your enemies'), but I suppose the idea of mini-flak is sound enough. You should try it.

Spoiler: Elaboration, if you want it (click to show/hide)

Basically, it's a game where you shoot down enemy aircraft, over water, which is why the game's called Water in Fire (should've been Water On Fire, but meh). It's got three modes, which are slightly different. First and main mode has you controlling a rather vicious-looking multi-turreted gunboat. The boat has a shield and some upgrades are delivered to you via special cargo craft. The second mode is similar, except you're now controlling a sort of an air base on the sea, which is immobile - there are less possible upgrades (naturally), and the play is a little harder because you really can't move to avoid shots anymore, and you can't catch powerups if they miss you. The third mode is an odd one, in which you "control", or rather support, a number of allied aircraft. These duke it out with enemy aircraft, and you lose if your last ally is shot down. I can't decide if it's harder or not, because on one hand you don't get to do pretty much anything except save your allies from occasional missiles, and on the other hand you're no longer one big fat target in the center of the screen and all those pesky bombers have no effect on you. (I have trouble understanding where the fark do your shots come from in this mode though) There are even less upgrades this time, only firepower, super-shot, and the occasional support ability (including temporary air support, interestingly).

The game does get rather tedious after a while, but it does keep the difficulty up as well (I never managed more than five/six levels in one "lifespan"), and doesn't increase difficulty by just giving your enemies fatter hulls - the enemy eventually gets shields and new weapons like plasmaguns, torpedoes, acid bombs, goddamn EMP charges, friggin hopping bombs, canister bombs, etc. It's good fun for a while.

OfficeOne is probably just some homebrew variation of OpenOffice. Kill it and install the normal OpenOffice.

edit: OfficeOne is made by Issendis, and is basically an OEM package of OpenOffice and some random stuff they threw together.

edit2: Apparently, since I last played it WiF2 got updated and now has 4 game modes instead of the 3 I described. Go figure. I thought it was long dead.

edit3: What I just said there above the spoiler about having a different attack style? Turns out they gone and did it. The fourth mode is an "amphibious tank" mode that makes you a smaller target on the water, and gives you just one turret, but one that shoots actual projectiles instead of flak that spawns around your cursor. Can't wait to see what other ludicrousness they added to the new version.

[G-Flex]

Looking at that site, I don't see any mention of OpenOffice or the GPL for it at all. I wouldn't be surprised if they pretend it's entirely their own product. That's really goddamn sketchy of them, I must say, if that's the case.

[eerr]

So basically you need to know wether they use a malcious buisness tactic or a scetchy buisness tactic.

[Sean Mirrsen]

My vote goes to "sketchy". Apparently, they just took OpenOffice, rammed it together with Paint.Net, some homebrew apps and a few little-known games, sprinkled extras on top (v7 comes with 4 months of Kaspersky Internet Security included), and shoved it onto the market.

[G-Flex]

I'd say that packaging together someone else's work without giving them credit goes beyond "malicious". Being under the GPL doesn't make those programs public domain, after all. They can reasonably be expected to make it clear what they're licensing for their software, as is par for the course. The fact that it's not even clear if they admit to it being OpenOffice anywhere doesn't bode well.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Well, the fact that it uninstalls OpenOffice upon installing (presuming you didn't get it as OEM) should be a hint.

And yeah, there's no mention of OpenOffice anywhere. I might "acquire" a package just to see what the hell is in there. Might have to do something about my OpenOffice install first though.

[DeKaFu]

Well, after looking at this page and examining the license for Office ONE, it sounds like it's technically legal, like Dasleah said. The license says it uses the Openoffice.org library and says you can get the source code at www.openoffice.org, and includes the LGPL.
It also offers to send you a copy of "the combined source code" "in accordance with the license GNU LGPL" in the mail for a mere 50 euros. 

The fact that they changed all the names and logos and make no mention of Openoffice until after you've bought/acquired the program still makes it incredibly shady in my opinion. The licenses also claim Issendis has complete ownership of all the games included.

This page lists everything that came with it, I think. I just noticed it includes "Avast Antivirus (1 year)" ...which is the Antivirus this computer came pre-installed with. I ended up uninstalling it and replacing it with AVG since it was acting weird and blocking all cookies. I had no idea it might've come from this package...ugh.

Also, despite the fact I've still not found a single place selling it, this line in the license:

Each user must own a user licence. The purchase of a product only gives the right to ONE sole user licence.

...makes me think that someone was suckered into paying for it.

But yeah, as far as I can tell it's an underhanded setup but not actually criminal.

[Jookia]

It's illegal to sell GPL'd software.