>Isn't that sort of what Redhat did?

Sort of I suppose - but I don't know the details. For one thing, 10 years ago when red hat started - there was much more upside to the Linux world than what exists in the xbase world today. Second - I believe that Red Hat started from scratch - which meant that it was an investment of sweat equity amongs a lot of backs - and no real investment in $'s - which would be different that what is being proposed here. Third - when things got going - Red Hat went public.

I don't see the similarity.