The Mandrake/Conectiva merger has had a chance to sink in. I’m almost getting used to the name Mandriva. But I’m still trying to figure out last week’s announcement that Mandriva has bought Lycoris—or rather, has “purchase[d] several assets from Lycoris.” The big news is that they’re combining Mandriva Discovery (their entry-level desktop OS) with Lycoris Desktop/LX.

The main thing is, I can’t make out just what Mandriva has and has not bought. I can’t figure out whether there’s anything left of Lycoris, the company. Their CEO is moving to Mandriva to head up the new product. Their software collection and user forums are moving to Mandrake Club. Their flagship product is being merged with one of Mandriva’s. But the wording of the press release implies that they haven’t bought everything. If I were to guess, Lycoris might start focusing on their Tablet PC line.

What does seem to be happening is that Mandrake has begun collecting a number of the smaller commercial players in the Linux arena. Who knows? They may be in a position to challenge Red Hat and Novell soon.

CNet reports that Adobe is buying Macromedia for $3.4 billion. I don’t know whether to be more disturbed that Adobe will be in control of ColdFusion and Dreamweaver, or that Flash and Acrobat (the two most common—and most often abused—plug-in formats on the web) will be under the same roof.

As far as comparing the companies, I think the forum quote from “Biggles Worth” in the sidebar has it about right: “Moby Dick has swallowed the Little Mermaid.”