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The difficult part is: they have to change their name, for reasons of the Magician thing, and for the developers of Conectiva, in numbers they're not far behind the original Mdksoft..

ummm... mandrake has to change the name anyways because there was a court-trial with infringement of copyrighted names. the name mandrake, based on the comic-figure, is copyrighted since a long, long time. the comic-company and mandrake agreed that mandrakelinux is allowed to use the name for a certain amount of time (i think it was till 2006) and then they must change the name. this approach has been followed gradually. first, the wizard-tux was removed, now, we finally see the name change.

 

but mandriva sounds ugly. reminds me of "manic driver" or some kind of a diva. nonono... they should have changed the name to something completely different and new. something with style.

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arctic, I know, that's what I call the Magician thing.

If you look up the related thread here, I even mentioned I contacted the son of the original Mandrake the Magician - there was a guy who did the act 'Mandrake the Magician'. I asked his son about this copyright stuff, and he confirmed that his dad had gotten permission to use the name... interesting...

 

Something with style? Hmmm, nah, they'll never think that would be good. Look at the new starry eyes penguin head of the installer....

Which, btw, my 14 year old nephew really found cool.

 

Note: he only got to see it because I've been too busy with other things to take it away..!!

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arctic, I know, that's what I call the Magician thing.

uh.. oh.. okay :unsure:

If you look up the related thread here, I even mentioned I contacted the son of the original Mandrake the Magician - there was a guy who did the act 'Mandrake the Magician'. I asked his son about this copyright stuff, and he confirmed that his dad had gotten permission to use the name... interesting...

i am too lazy to read everything. i know.. in this case i should shut up. ;)

Something with style? Hmmm, nah, they'll never think that would be good. Look at the new starry eyes penguin head of the installer....

Which, btw, my 14 year old nephew really found cool.

 

Note: he only got to see it because I've been too busy with other things to take it away..!!

:lol:

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How about we opened a nomination thread for new names, then used the nominations for a poll and sent the results to Mandrake? Eh? One of use could perhaps have boasting rights over naming Mandrake Linux... or maybe not :?

 

The fact that they've bought domains probably means that they've decided already.

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Having to change the name is because yet another m*****l US company is claiming world ownership of an internationally used word.  The idiots in the French legal system sided with the US Company  (a comic book publisher........among other things). 

I can see how it might appear that way to new Mandrake users, but Mandrakesoft isn't innocent in this matter.

 

post-1757-1112560546_thumb.jpgpost-1757-1112560573_thumb.jpg

 

Mandrakesoft was unwise to think that the copyright would not be enforced. Yes, it's a big hassle to rebrand a company and an entire product line. It's a marketing nightmare, too, but Mandrakesoft took a big gamble and lost. It has no one to blame but itself.

 

Changing the name is a good idea from a legal point of view. Names that seem "weird" to anglophones are OK for Linux distributions (Knoppix, Ubuntu). Combined names are also OK (Debian). The important thing is for the distribution to have a unique name, and a culture that can be associated with that name. Debian, Gentoo and Fedora have done this very well. Suse has completely lost its identity to anyone but longtime Suse users. The Novell site is a generic business site full of buzzwords and IT cliches, and doesn't tells you about the Suse community or what makes Suse unique. Mandrake alienated a large part of its community when it shut down Deno's original forum, but retained many of those users thanks to sites like this one, and pclinuxonline.com back when Texstar used to make Mandrake packages. Other distributions are becoming as polished as Mandrake now, so there isn't as much incentive for Mandrake users to stick around while Mandrakesoft experiments with new release cycles, mirror structures, etc. Marketing has never been Mandrake's strong point. I mean, they actually named a distribution "Limited Edition." The first thing people are going ask is "which features are limited?" Can you imagine the ridicule Microsoft would get if it released something called Windows Limited Edition? Mandrake needs to hire a vice-president of marketing who understands Linux, market competition and the Linux community. Product development should be part of his mandate.

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I agree with most, except the last part: they don't need someone who understands the Linux community in marketing, they need someone who can get Mdk preloaded.

The first distro to get preloaded from lots of places is going to hit the bigtime.

 

Think about it, it's no longer about getting a Linux fanbase, it's about getting MSWin converts.

Mdk is set for that.

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Mandrake isn't ready for the OEM market yet. For the OEM market, you need a "click and run" type of software installer. The number of people on this forum asking for help installing basic software proves that. If an OEM user wants to install KOffice and does an RPMdrake search, he shouldn't see all the lib, devel and i18n packages listed. He should see one KOffice metapackage, with the correct i18n package installed based on his desktop settings. Lib and devel packages should be tucked away under an "advanced settings" area. You could even have a metapackage for required components, and a bunch of optional packages for addons, but these addons should be indented under the metapackage to make it clear that they are subpackages. As far as I can tell, Linspire is the closest to doing this. The old Ximian Red Carpet installer was getting close to this, too. The yearly release cycle will help with OEM adoption, but Mandrake still hasn't delivered a single product under this cycle. An OEM would be insane to consider Mandrake for bulk distribution before the successful completion of a couple cycles.

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How about we opened a nomination thread for new names, then used the nominations for a poll and sent the results to Mandrake? Eh? One of use could perhaps have boasting rights over naming Mandrake Linux... or maybe not :?

good idea... I got things started:

http://mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=24177

 

The fact that they've bought domains probably means that they've decided already.

Your probably right... but I am not going to sit back and do nothing... gotta try... right?

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The problem is that the name has to be trademarkable. If Mandrake doesn't base their image on Mandrake the Magician in the first place, Mandrake could've win this one (I mean, I am a comic book fan and even I am hard-pressed to remember Mandrake the Magician image, it's not that markettable today compared to say.. Batman).

 

While the name Mandriva is ugly, at least it's trademarkable. Face it, no matter what you name your brand / company, there will be a language in which the word (or similar sounding name) is a curse word or something like that. Remember the Chinese Coca Cola example?

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The problem is that the name has to be trademarkable. If Mandrake doesn't base their image on Mandrake the Magician in the first place, Mandrake could've win this one (I mean, I am a comic book fan and even I am hard-pressed to remember Mandrake the Magician image, it's not that markettable today compared to say.. Batman).

 

While the name Mandriva is ugly, at least it's trademarkable. Face it, no matter what you name your brand / company, there will be a language in which the word (or similar sounding name) is a curse word or something like that. Remember the Chinese Coca Cola example?

Mantiva is still a better choice IMHO, and it's trademarkable. And if it's all about trademarks then why not use Conectiva. Everyone knows it's a Linux distro Mandrake bought (merged) with them so I can't see any problems.

What was the Chinese Coca Cola example?

Edited by dexter11
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