Mandrakesoft Changes Name to Mandriva

joestar writes "Following its recent merger with Conectiva, Mandrakesoft has decided to change its name to 'Mandriva' for two reasons: "1. The recent Mandrakesoft - Conectiva merger calls for a new identity that better represents the combination of two key companies and their global presence. 2. The long-winding trademark lawsuit with Hearst Corporation has reached a point where we decided it is more reasonable for us to move forward.". Mandrake is dead, long life to Mandriva!"

Well

[paranode]

I preferred Conedrakesoft, but... whatever...

April Fools?

[BJZQ8]

April Fools Day was the 1st...Oh wait, they're serious.

Harddriva?

[brontus3927]

So will all their *Drake tools now be *Driva tools? It just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Stupidest. Name. Evar.

[criscooil]

They should have called it "Firebird Linux".

Great name!

[waynegoode]

Mandriva

I'm sure glad they didn't pick some wimpy combination of Mandrake and Conectiva. Now the three top distros at Distrowatch [distrowatch.com] (choose last 3 months) will all have great-sounding, easy-to-pronounce names:

1. Ubuntu
2. Mandriva
3. Mepis

They can't be serious!

[Anonymous Coward]

What's more ridiculous than this name?

Maybe Linspire...

Re:April Fools?

[xanthines-R-yummy]

It's April 1st there. They're in a different time zone!

Oh, wait...

Sounds like...

[mikefoley]

...the name of a tranny stripper..

Eeesh...

Re:Well

[ImaLamer]

Cone drakesoft?

Well, it is from France!

Represents WHAT???

[hesiod]

> the recent Mandrakesoft - Conectiva merger calls for a new identity that better represents the combination of two key companies and their global presence.

How does "Mandriva" "represent their Global Presence?" If I had no idea what they made and was asked to guess, it would be some sort of male driving school... Or a singing fruit (mandarin, Diva)... But in no way does Mandriva make me think "Linux, of course!"

No self-respecting man would install "mandriva"

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, come on. This is a name just asking to be picked on. I wonder if I'll someday be able to install mandriva on my performa. That would be awesomea.

Unless this is a method for hardening its security-- y'know, everyone picks on mandriva, so it has to toughen itself up. Like naming your son Sue or something.

Re:Harddriva?

[paranode]

Don't forget to compile the kernel modules for your SoundDriva too.

Re:Names

[baudilus]

A rose by any other name......

.....could still not be as stupid sounding as "Mandriva."

Next up....

[cprincipe]

Noveluse

Microsoft is right....

[gmuslera]

... Linux MUST be hard to use, see how difficult will be to pronounce the name of most of their main distributions (SuSE with mixed case? Ubuntu? And now... Mandriva? even is hard to pronounce linux [sladen.org]), then installing/using them should be even harder.

Thinking that

[Anonymous Coward]

Mangina might've been a better name.

Disturbing name.

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me too much of the spanish word "maricon", which roughly translates to "queer" or "fag" when used to reference a homosexual.

Re:Harddriva?

[rbochan]

But they can now refer to their mailing lists as Mandrivel ;o)

It's curable

[George Tirebuyer]

I swear I caught this once and a shot of Trobicin fixed it.

Has anyone else noticed ... ?

[Chromodromic]

That if, say, you're an English speaker unfamiliar with the "i's" long "e" sound, you'll be likely to pronounce it "Man-dreyeva", which sounds like New York slang for "Mandriver", which sounds like gay porn?

Not that there's anything wrong with that ...

Well, actually, for a product name, yes there is. That's awful. God. A name only an engineer could love.

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

RedHat and Astaro Security Linux [astaro.com] have merged to become Red Ass Linux

All welcome our Red Ass overlords!

Avirdnam

[Swamii]

You know that when your company's sounds better pronounced backwards, you've picked a lousy name.

Re:Harddriva?

[Amoeba]

Don't forget to compile the kernel modules for your SoundDriva too.

And do you pronounce Mandriva as "Man-drive-ah" or as "Man-dree-vah"? I'm thinking the first one would be best cause, Snap G! I gots my Soundriva up n running in dis mofo.

Uh.. nevermind.

Good they renamed it, but will QA follow?

[ArsenneLupin]

The name change was needed. Indeed, in Luxembourgish, Mandrake litterally means "my trash". And given Mandrake's low reliability the name stuck...

Just let's hope, that with the new name, they'll also improve their QA...

They're just trying to filter out the females...

[0siris]

I can imagine it now.

Mandriva? Man driva? Woman can drive just as well as men! Sexist company, I'll not be using their distro!

Re:Is that the best they could do?

[Dun Malg]

I think you found the one worse name they could have gone with.

Conetidrake?

Nah there are plenty worse:
Comandrake (they manage gardeners, right?)
Manconnect (gay dating service?)
Condrake (AKA conservative [google.com] linux)
Mandiva (Drag queen lounge singer?)
Mancondrakectiva (some sort of respiratory infection?)

Not to say they couldn'y have done better than they did...

Re:Sounds like...

[Mr Guy]

I read it as "Man dree vuh" and thought it sounded like a small Eastern bloc country occupied by the Soviets after World War II.

Do you haf za news from Mandreevah!

Dah! Vee haf crushed da reseestance in Mandreevah! Long live mother Russia!

It's better than a few other alternatives, though.

[jd]

Here are other names they might have used...

• ConMan (well, depending on the quality of the merge)
  
• Drake Connect (useful if anyone wants to set up a Romanized dragon dating servce)
  
• IvaSoft (Adult themes get searched more than anything else)
  
• Floccinaucinihilipilihication [fun-with-words.com] would seem to be appropriate, as would Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. These would seem to be much more memorable.
  

Re:Well

[Agrippa]

Cheer up. It could of been renamed to "Manspire".

.agrippa.

At the risk of redundancy...

[CDarklock]

...what a stupid name.

"Condrake" would have been easy to pronounce. Unfortunately, it has the word "Con" in it, which doesn't sound like a good thing to buy.

Why didn't they use something completely new like "Foxglove"? It's herbal and has earthy, pagan overtones like Mandrake. It's also got some interesting connotations about being a comfortable covering for Firefox.

I *like* Foxglove. Somebody should start a Foxglove Linux project. I can immediately picture the logo, the website, and a half dozen decent marketing campaigns. You could talk about it being "foxy", make a pun on the Dr. Seuss classic "Fox in Socks", make "fox guarding the henhouse" references, say it "fits like a glove", run a "Poison your PC" campaign, or (my personal favorite) call it "digital digitalis". It's a *damn* fine name for a Linux distro.

Too bad nobody ever listens to me. ;)

Man-drivel?

[kpharmer]

Just don't get this - what kind of a brainstorming session did these guys have?

mansnivel?
mansnot?
manmucus?
manbile?
manslurry?
mandribble?

mandriven?
mandriver?
mandriveme?
man-drivin' female?

Just like my old scout, I'll probably just go on calling it what I've always called it- Mandingo.

Re:Great name!

[Stevyn]

Ubuntu, sounds like a baseball strategy.

Mandriva, sounds like a bunch of guys driving down the road

Mepis, Me piss?

At least I can say, "well Gentoo is a species of penguins you ignorant pisser."

Re:Harddriva?

[2old2rockNroll]

They have been renamed to the equally girly "Duck Tools"

So the backup program is now called Duck Tape? Sorry.

Hearst lawsuit

[bcrowell]

More info about the Hearst lawsuit here [desktoplinux.com]. Wow, looks to me like a pretty clear case where a big, powerful corporation is using a lawsuit that's utterly without merit in order to screw a small, weak corporation.

BTW, mandrake is also a natural laxative.

A Weird Name (was Re:Avirdnam)

[manastungare]

Now, ain't that "a weird name" really ...

Re:Well

[MikeMacK]

It sounds too much like this [imdb.com] and I know that can't be good for business!

Re:In other news...

[Yankel]

RedHat and Astaro Security Linux have merged to become Red Ass Linux

I thought they were going with AssHat Linux.

Mandriva

[PeDRoRist]

Womanshouta

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandrake/Linux, Manux... Manux: The Hands of Fate.

what a lousy name

[felipe.ledesma]

This is the bad thing about inventing company names when you are drunk. I bet they were celebrating the merger, they all got drunk and then "mindstormed" this jewel.

No no no!

[erroneus]

That doesn't roll off the tongue.

MANDIVA! Now that's a better name... or is it?

And furthermore...

[PCM2]

Ol' Man-driva
Dat Ol' Man-driva
He mus' know sumpin'
But don' say nuthin'
He jes' keeps rollin'
He keeps on rollin' along

Re:Great name!

[UrgleHoth]

Well, on the topic of great sounding distros, How about naming one "Cthulhu" (barring any existing copyright issues). Bonus would be the slogan, "Cthulhu Linux, it'll suck your face off."

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple and Micosoft have merged, and to better represent both companies, they are now called
ApplePileOfShit

Re:Great name!

[ScoLgo]

Say what you will. I'm just glad they kept the 'r' in there. Otherwise, their mascot might've been John Madden dressed like Mariah Carey.

Yipes!!

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

A PhD has a lot of room to be talking.

Re:Well

[sharkey]

urpmi --update mass-quantities

Re:Really?

[h4rm0ny]

MOD PARENT: +5 Metaphysical.

Re:Hearst lawsuit

[schon]

mandrake is also a natural laxative.

Maybe, but it's a bitch swallowing all eight CDs.

Re:Well

[badmammajamma]

Apparently Mangina was taken.

No, it's a recursive acronym

[marciot]

> Distro Renamed to Irritate Various Americans

Good idea, but you got it slightly wrong. It's a recursive acronym:

Driva Really Irrates Various Americans.

-- Marcio

Now we know why Mandrake has seemed so lost...

[adrenaline_junky]

like any Mandriva, they won't stop to ask for directions.

(sorry)

Re:Well

[kdpickett]

Mandriva has kind of a prison rape overtone to it for some reason... Not the best combo of words to lay down...

Re:Well

[Stevis]

Not to mention when they randomly generate a company name by combining astronomical and electrical engineering terms, and get "Uranus-Hertz."

Some names I suggested to Mandrakesoft

[Anand_S]

Mandrakesoft was obviously intent on combining "Mandrake" with "Connectiva" for the new name, so I came up with the following:

1. Condrakula
2. ConMan
3. MaC OS 10.2

Re:Sounds like...

[Mad_Rain]

I read it as "Man dree vuh" and thought it sounded like a small Eastern bloc country occupied by the Soviets after World War II.

I can't believe no one has said this yet:

In Soviet Russia, Mandriva renames YOU!

ew, now I feel all... dirty. Blech.

Re:Well

[kai.chan]

Any ideas for what the logo should look like?