Jarsve
I got an answer from Pete Brown!
"Hi Øyvind, thanks for the email. I'm not sure what Gibson has in mind here, but it doesn't appear to include selling off Cakewalk SONAR."
And now for the conspiracy theory: There are a lot of management types who when they get an idea in their head, they will see it come to fruition, come hell or high water. Gibson management certainly appear to be this way. Despite many critics (and users alike) lambasting their direction or plans, they still insisted on seeing their concepts become reality.
Gibson's vision was to have a dual OS, Tascam branded DAW.
Sonar couldn't be that.
But Sonar has some nice shiny parts that could be plucked off to become a part of new DAW. Not to mention sample libraries, instruments and plugs. The reddit thread said that Gibson had put employees in place at Cakewalk and no one was sure what they actually did there. Perhaps their role was to go through the Windows drenched API and figure out what could be ported and what was to be discarded?
To add to that, the "planned future add-ons" never saw the light of day. What better way to get cash rolling and create excitement when starting up a new DAW, than to have a bunch of new plugs available for purchase or even thrown in for free?