If you're running Linux you have the full feature set up to 1.5 (unless you've somehow managed to get some early 2.0 drivers). I'm pretty sure that OS X gives you 1.5 too, although I wouldn't be surprised if Apple were still a generation behind.
If you're running Windows you've got 1.2. This is because Microsoft decided that DirectX was the way forward and life for the OpenGL programmer should be made difficult. Fortunately the graphics card manufacturers made the extra functions available through the OpenGL extensions mechanism. In other words, you can use OpenGL 1.5 in Max right now, but you have to load the functions as extensions (for example, there's a thread somewhere around here about lights in Max, which contains some code that uses OpenGL 1.3 multitexturing). GLEE and GLEW are tools to hide all the nasty extensions code.
FWIW, I think that the functions up to 1.5 should be added to BlitzGL so that you can access them on every platform as though they were native functions, not extensions.
If you're running Windows you've got 1.2. This is because Microsoft decided that DirectX was the way forward and life for the OpenGL programmer should be made difficult. Fortunately the graphics card manufacturers made the extra functions available through the OpenGL extensions mechanism. In other words, you can use OpenGL 1.5 in Max right now, but you have to load the functions as extensions (for example, there's a thread somewhere around here about lights in Max, which contains some code that uses OpenGL 1.3 multitexturing). GLEE and GLEW are tools to hide all the nasty extensions code.
FWIW, I think that the functions up to 1.5 should be added to BlitzGL so that you can access them on every platform as though they were native functions, not extensions.