Nothing was stopping those developers from using the OpenGL standard if they wanted, and MS hardly forced the D3D standard. It worked, it was available, and it was good enough that they wanted to adopt it.
I'll take your word for it they "hardly forced it". Though this snippet from wiki page "Comparison of OpenGL and Direct3D
WP" shows less than fair play in the beginning:
Microsoft had marketed Direct3D as faster based on in-house performance comparisons of these two software libraries. The performance deficit was blamed on the rigorous specification and conformance required of OpenGL. This perception was changed at the 1996 SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics) conference. At that time, SGI challenged Microsoft with their own optimized Windows software implementation of OpenGL called CosmoGL which in various demos matched or exceeded the performance of Direct3D. For SGI, this was a critical milestone as it showed that OpenGL's poor software rendering performance was due to Microsoft's reference OpenGL implementation, and not to design flaws in OpenGL itself.
Both OpenGL and D3D contributed to the demise of the various chipset-specific implementations of 3D acceleration, which has been a win for gamers in general.
I agree.
"Pure, unadulterated evil," indeed.
That's a phrase I would reserve for something like the Holocaust or the ethic cleansing in Rwanda. Given that no one is even forcing you to use MS software, I think the choice of words is just a tad ridiculous.
You're right, that was over-the-top. Of course, the game (and other software) developers who only deliver for the MS platform(s) force me to use MS Windows if I want to use their software.
Unless you find it somehow offensive that other people use MS products.
Everyone should decide for him/herself what software to use. I think the current situation with MS' very dominant (>90%) position on the PC OS market is very unhealthy; both from a competition aspect as from a security aspect. Monocultures breed insecurity, and the spam you get in your mailbox is the most visible manifestation of that. You won't hear me advocating that Linux should take over the world, or MacOS, or BSD, or BeOS, or AmigaOS, or what-have-you-not. Given a level choice in deciding which one to purchase, these "alternative" OSes could have a considerable market-share given their technical qualities and their user-friendliness.
The most important aspect of computer programs - whether OS or application - today is interoperability. In the case of the OS, the interoperability is determined by its APIs and other interfaces like network protocols. In the case of applications, this is determined by its document formats. In both categories, Microsoft has deliberately played unfair in order to stifle competition and interoperability with (would be) competitors.
A few examples. Until very recently, MS has not disclosed the SMB specs. They have deliberately changed it every Windows version so that, e.g., the Samba team had to play catch-up every time. By contrast, the NFS file sharing protocol has been open from day 1, as were the printing protocols LPD and IPP.
For making a Single Sign-On domain, on UNIX I can use the standard LDAP and Kerberos protocols to build such a domain consisting of different versions of UNIX OS'es. Although MS chose to use LDAP and Kerberos as building blocks for AD, they've mixed them in such a non-standard way that interoperability - the creation of a heterogenous UNIX/Windows domain - is still considered the holy grail in system administration.
The same I said above for SMB holds for the Word DOC-format. It has changed considerably every version of Word, to the point that old DOC-files can't be read by the current version of Word. Microsoft hasn't disclosed any of those formats. The so-called OpenXML "standard" is, at 8,000 pages and with terms like "formatlikeWord95", hardly better at "playing nice" - not even considering incidents like Microsoft Sweden's attempt at bribing the national standards committee.
As a last example I refer to Microsoft's treatment of the various web standards, which I've already mentioned in earlier posts in this thread.
In short, Microsoft has never been known to play fair when it came to implementing standards; the OpenGL incident with their slow driver is an example of that too.
Adhering to standards is important for everyone. The consumer knows that he can send the file he just produced to a colleague and the colleague can read it. The software developer knows that the software he makes not only can be compiled on his development platform but also on other platforms. The system administrator knows that, say, the LDAP server he deploys can communicate with the LDAP clients on computers with other OS'es he has deployed. The computer/OS manufacturer knows that by adhering to standards, the interoperability gives him a chance to penetrate the market.
Only the party which has cornered 90% of the computer market has no advantage in adhering to standards, and his not doing so incurs unneeded extra expenses on all other parties to realize interoperability or to succumb to the monopolist.
And for that, Microsoft is rightly punished by, e.g., the EU. The only problem is that the fines are lower than the profits it reaps from its anticompetitive behaviour, and thus do not work to rectify that.
To conclude my answer to your question: I do not find it offensive that people use Microsoft products, but I do find it offensive that people use proprietary Microsoft formats. I'd outlaw in a whim the use of DOC as a document exchange format for public institutions.
