> it's not clear that the extremely narrow feature set of Oxide justifies the engineering effort required.

Their customers think so.

(Think governments, security-serious applications, critical workloads, science, energy, financial, etc.)

Some if it may even get sent to labs first for disassembly and inspection. Other times it may never ever be plugged in to an internet connection.

For these customers, the feature set, supply chain ownership, integration and support is everything.