The fact that Active Directory is asinine isn't a slight against free software. Pretty much every reason I can imagine a government picking Microsoft has to do

The fact that Active Directory is asinine isn't a slight against free software. Pretty much every reason I can imagine a government picking Microsoft has to do with prior contracts and integration. > You will get locked in to the one/two vendors that can make those free and open document formats and protocols work You don't seem to understand what the phrase "locked-in" means. A document format that is open and documented is not lock-in at all. It's the opposite - it enables people to create competing and integrated solutions without licensing proprietary software. Better yet, it incentives companies like Microsoft and Google to support something other than their own document format if they want to be competitive. An effective democracy cannot have a government that only supports customers of a product. "Locked-in" are the poor saps that license Microsoft software to control their battleships, their SAM sites, their CIWS and their TACANs. Nobody is ever going to disrupt their dominance even if Active Directory is the worst option available on the market. The lack of meaningful competition and standardization literally costs lives in some industries. It's why every modernized military is backed by a government that strictly drafts and defines it's demands for competing contractors.