Ethical questions

Bulk of IT spending on Microsoft licensing – is it right to hand over UK tax pounds to an American company? And a convicted monopolist at that?
Given public institutions must prove “best use of money”, how is the spending on closed-source proprietary software justified?
Given FE/HE institutions are supposed to be leaders in free-thinking teaching and research, shouldn't they be backing Open Standards-based solutions?

Bulk of IT spending on Microsoft licensing – is it right to hand over UK tax pounds to an American company? And a convicted monopolist at that?