Arthur Tyde

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arthur Tyde is an American software entrepreneur and private investigator based in San Francisco and SE Asia. He has been an advocate for Open Source software since founding the first Linux Users Group in the San Francisco / Silicon Valley Area. (BALUG). He is a consultant and venture partner with FGR Hong Kong Ltd.

Tyde graduated from Michigan State University with a BA in Telcommunications and Anthropology and was the author of many shoot-em-up style games for Atari consoles, the Commodore 64 and Texas Instruments TI-99/4A home computer systems. Following graduation he jumped freight trains covering most of North America and Canada with Steve Keeley, famous adventurer and speculator.

Tyde settled in San Francisco, California where he started his West Coast career as the Information Systems Director for the Law Offices of Melvin Belli in 1988. He was part of the team that worked on the landmark Exxon and Dow Corning lawsuits. Three years later he teamed up with Melvin Belli's chief investigator to start a boutique detective agency specializing in high tech competitive issues and due diligence for mergers and acquisitions.

Tyde had a significant impact on the computing industry as the original CEO and co-founder of Linuxcare where he recruited some of the most talented developers in Open Source software. Linuxcare was the first company to offer commercial / enterprise class support for Linux and Open Source software and supported 21 different Linux distributions on nine hardware architectures. Linuxcare held the Dell support contract for Red Hat Linux for many years, negotiating a deal with Dell that effectively substituted the Windows license SKU for a support contract with Linuxcare. In addition, Tyde is credited, though Linuxcare, as the founding sponsor of the Linux Professional Institute, the Free Standards Group, and one of the first platinum members of the OSDL. Linuxcare was intended to become publicly traded in 2001, led by Credit Suisse First Boston, but market circumstances and the termination of the companies CEO ultimately ended its ambition to go public.

Tyde lectures on Linux in the enterprise, computer security, privacy issues, and building startup companies.

[edit] Current Appointments

• Chairman, Sputnik Inc., wireless media, San Francisco CA
• Venture Partner, FGR, venture capital, Hong Kong SAR, PRC
• Board of Directors, Stravati Dalian Software Company Ltd, Software Development, Dalian China
• Board of Advisors, Untangle Inc., Open Source Gateway, San Mateo CA
• Board of Advisors, TSKG Linuxworld Korea, Seoul Korea
• Board of Advisors, SingleStep Technologies, enterprise systems management, Seattle WA
• Board of Advisors, Black Duck Software, intellectual property management, Boston MA

[edit] References

• Linux Foundation. "FSG Expands Management Team With Linux Industry Pioneer Arthur Tyde", Linux Foundation, 20 March 2005. 

• Wired News. "New Gigs for Linux Wonder Boys", Robert McMillan, 20 March 2005. 
• Grid Today. "Grid Computing - Tyde appointed to Board of Directors, SpecOps Labs", Grid Computing, 18 March 2005. 
• Sputnik Inc.. Sputnik Executive Team. Sputnik. Retrieved on 21 March 2005. — startup company co-founded by Arthur Tyde
• Smart Reseller. "Smart Reseller", Smart 50 of 1999. Retrieved on 19 April.  — Smart 50 of 1999
• Robert McMillan. "The Last Agnostics", Linux Magazine, 15 October 1999. 

[edit] Web and Second Life

• Vagabond Globetrotting in the 21st Century (Arthur Tyde's blog)
• Arthur Tyde's entry in the Eris Society Wiki
• Arthur Tyde is known as Arthur Burma based on Tsolyani island.