As well as reflecting the merged company, the name change will also allow Mandriva to leave behind a long-running legal dispute with Heasrt, which owns the trademark for the comic book character Mandrake the Magician.
In February 2004, the then Mandrakesoft lost a court case against Hearst, which had contended that the Linux distributor was infringing its trademark. While appealing the decision, the company opted to change its product name from Mandrake Linux to Mandrakelinux.
The products will now be marketing under the name Mandriva Linux. As previously reported, the company registered the domain names Mandriva.com and Mandriva.net at the end of February, while Conectiva registered Mandriva.com.br last month.
The company recently announced that it is moving to an annual release cycle for the Mandriva Linux retail distribution, starting with Mandriva Linux 2006, which is due in the Fall and will integrate technology from Conectiva.
That release will be preceded by the transitional Limited Edition 2005 version, due in Spring, which will replace the previously scheduled Mandrakelinux 10.2 but will not be backed by the company’s support and services.
