Evil Kraig F (8/11/2014)
I would disagree. I think the better approach would be the OP's original idea, but slightly modified. If you use SELECT * FROM OPENQUERY( LinkedServer, 'sqlstatement'), you'll have (hopefully) a lot less impact across the servers trying to meld all that together on the local box.I would weep for my servers if my peers did a view like described above though, in just about any form. That would need some wicked justifications... and a few explanations about why we aren't ETL'ing into a warehouse somewhere.
Assuming the OP used the term "database" in its correct SQL Server sense, I think Lutz's solution should work just fine - a view that returns data from multiple databases on the same SQL Server instance is usually not a problem.
If, on the other hand, the OP wants to create a view that returns data from different *instances* of SQL Server, well, yuck - that's a problematic idea. I think Kraig's idea of using a series of SELECT * FROM OPENQUERY() statements with UNION ALLs to get the data from each instance would be the best way to go here.
Jason Wolfkill