> Using the model of the university and various tenured profs, I'm not sure what you are saying is true. But, perhaps it's a misunderstanding of what I was intending.

Tenured professors are not engaged in commercial product development.

> The goal of this "faculty" would be sustainable OSS maintenance (which involves both leadership and contribution), rather than publishing research and teaching classes.

OSS isn't commercial, per se.

Universities "ship" plenty of "products":

https://www.rcac.purdue.edu/services/hubzero

https://www.scala-lang.org/scala-core/